Preamble

The House met at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

PRIVATE BILLS (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the Second Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—

Bank of England Bill.

Bill committed.

PRIVATE BILLS [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—

Thomas Cheshire and Company, Limited (Delivery Warrants), Bill [Lords].

Bill to be read a Second time.

Ebbw Vale Urban District Council Bill,

Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Tramways and Electricity Board Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL,

to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Minister of Health relating to Hartlepool, Hereford, Huddersfield, Shrewsbury, and Tunbridge Wells," presented by Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN;
read the First time; and referred to the I Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 80.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

APPEALS DISALLOWED (WEDNESBURY, DARLASTON AND TIPTON).

Mr. SHORT: 1.
asked the Minister of Pensions the number of ex-service men resident in Wednesbury, Darlaston, and Tipton who are suffering from tuberculosis, and who have had their claims for a pension disallowed by the Lords Appeal Tribunal during 1922?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): As I informed the hon. Member on the 8th December last, the records of my Department are not kept in a form that permits of this information being extracted without incurring very considerable additional work, which I am not prepared to impose on my staff

KING'S ROYAL RIFLE CORPS (DEPENDANT'S ALLOWANCE,).

Mr. OLVER: 2.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will reconsider the case of Mrs. Gillott, re-married widow of the late Lance-corporal R. L. Reed, No. 6,335, King's Royal Rifle Corps, whose claim for continuance of dependant's allowance was rejected on the grounds that the disease of which her late husband died was not contracted or aggravated by active service; is he aware that after the death of the late soldier the allowance was not discontinued but increased, and was continued up to the time of the re-marriage of the widow; and, in view of this fact, will he undertake to reverse the previous decision and restore the children's allowance which apparently has been stopped under a misapprehension?

Major TRYON: The late soldier died of an acute illness nearly three years after he was invalided, on account of a gun-shot wound in the shoulder. After full consideration of all the circumstances the Ministry were unable to accept the
cause of death as being in any way connected with service. This decision, having been confirmed by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal, is now final, and the children are, therefore, not eligible for an award of pension or allowance from my Department. The payments to the widow, following her husband's death, were made in error.

WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (W. WILLIAMS).

Mr. BARKER: 3.
asked the Minister of Pensions if he will again go into the application of W. Williams, late West Yorkshire Regiment, residing at 9, York Street, Abertillery, for a commutation of his pension on the grounds that he was wrongly informed respecting the particulars of this application?

Major TRYON: I regret that as the award in this case is below the non-commutable minimum, 14s. a week, it is not possible for an application for commutation of pension to be entertained.

REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS, EAST MIDLANDS.

Mr. HILL: 6.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether it is intended to remove control of the East Midlands area from Nottingham to Birmingham; if so, whether due consideration has been given to the effect this will have in the proper consideration of pension claims in the East Midlands, having regard to the distance from Birmingham; whether he is aware that as a result of the change some 200 East Midland ex-service men will be discharged; and whether, in view of the necessity for maintaining close contact with individual claims for pension for enabling these men to submit their cases in person, and for preventing the congestion of work which will be involved by the discharge of so many men now engaged upon pension duties, he will reconsider the decision in question?

Major TRYON: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on the 13th instant, to the hon. and gallant Member for the Central Division of Nottingham (Capt. Berkeley), of which I am sending him a copy. I would emphasise the fact that there will be no change in the existing arrangements in the East Midlands Region for Local Area Offices, Medical
Boards or treatment and the individual pensioner will not be prejudiced in any way. I should not be justified, in maintaining an office which is no longer needed.

PENSION SUSPENDED (MRS. ADAMS).

Mr. HOGGE: 8.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether his attention has been called to the case of Mrs. Adams, the mother of the late Private Alexander Adams, No. 9,875; whether he is aware that she is a widow of 65 years of age; that she recently was sent to prison in Calton Gaol, Edinburgh, for 30 days on the charge of having omitted to disclose the fact that, while in receipt of a weekly pension of 6s., she earned 4s. 6d. a week as a charwoman; that she lost two sons in the war; that, in spite of her period of imprisonment, her weekly pension is now suspended in order to recover £33 8s. 7d.; that it will take over two years to recover such sum; and whether, in view of her age and the fact that she lost two sons and has already served her sentence in prison, he will wipe off the over issue of pension and renew at once her weekly pension?

Major TRYON: I cannot agree to waive the recovery of money which has been obtained from the State by misrepresentation, but I am making further enquiries the result of which may, I hope, enable me to consider sympathetically the questions of re-issuing pension, and of effecting recovery at a lower weekly rate.

Mr. HOGGE: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind this fact, that this old lady, who has lost two sons and who was sent to prison for this offence, was not even given the option of a fine, and now finds herself, at this period of life, without any means of subsistence at all?

Major TRYON: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am going into the case sympathetically, in view of the fact that this old lady has lost two sons, but if the issue of these pensions is not going to be safeguarded by making sure that persons' incomes are properly declared, the whole system of the pensions, which gives the greaten amount to the poor people, will break down.

QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S CONVALESCENT CENTRE, SALTASH.

Mr. FOOT: 9.
asked the Minister of Pensions to what use the Queen Alexandra's convalescent centre at Salt-ash will be put; and whether he will consider the proposal to allow the premises to be used as dwellings by approved tenants?

Major TRYON: I hope shortly to be in a position to announce a decision on this question.

Mr. FOOT: Will the right hon. Gentleman receive representations from the neighbourhood, in view of the serious house shortage there and the great value of these buildings?

Major TRYON: That point is being taken into account.

WIDOWS' PENSIONS (NORTH-WESTERN REGION).

Mr. ROBERT RICHARDSON: 11.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has received any complaints with respect to the delay in issuing pensions to the widows of deceased ex-service men in the North-Western region; what is the average time between the death of an ex-service man and the issue of a pension to his widow; and whether he will take steps to secure that appeals by widows to the pensions appeal tribunal should be heard within four weeks of the original claim being rejected by the Ministry of Pensions?

Major TRYON: I have received occasional complaints of the kind referred to. Where the man was not a pensioner, or dies of a disability other than that for which pension was granted, some time must necessarily be occupied in deciding the application. In a large number of cases the information submitted with the claim is very incomplete and must be supplemented by evidence collected from various sources by the Ministry. These inquiries are made in the widow's interest and with the sole object of endeavouring to establish connection between the fatal disability and service.
It would not be practicable, or in the widow's interest, to make any hard and fast rule that appeals should be heard within a given time. In no case can an appeal be prepared for the tribunal until the widow has lodged her appeal and the
supporting evidence, which is often some time after notification of rejection of the original claim.

" SUNDAY PICTORIAL" (CINEMA CONTEST).

Mr. ROBERT MORRISON: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the "Sunday Pictorial" cinema contest; whether he is aware that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis stated in a letter, dated 9th March, that the legal aspect of this competition was being carefully considered by his legal advisers: and what decision has been made?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Bridgeman): My attention has been drawn to this matter. I understand that the Commissioner of Police has been advised that. there appears to be no real distinction between this scheme and the poster competition, and that., acting on this advice, the Commissioner has directed proceedings. It should be added that an appeal has been entered against the conviction in the poster competition case.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SPECIAL SCHOOLS.

Major CADOGAN: 15.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the circular issued by him recently on the subject of special schools, it is intended that unqualified teachers will be given the responsibility of educating mentally-defective children: and whether it, is intended to increase the size of the classes in these schools?

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: 17.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will consider the withdrawal of Circular 1,297, in view of the strong protests raised by local authorities and school managers against the proposed reduction of staffs?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Edward Wood): I am afraid I can add nothing to the reply I gave on the 1st March to the hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. Morrison), except. that, as I stated in my
answer on Monday last to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), I will consider any objections or representations that may be made on the draft of the revised Regulations relating to special schools.

Mr. SHORT: 18.
asked the President of the Board of Education the number of special schools provided for children of school age who are mentally and physically defective, and the number of children attending such schools?

Mr. WOOD: The number of special schools for mentally-defective children is 199, and on the 31st March, 1922, there were 15,975 children on the registers of those schools. The corresponding. figures for physically-defective children are 203 and 14,419.

Mr. SHORT: 19.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether under Circular 1297 it is proposed to introduce unqualified teachers into special schools provided for the education of mentally and physically defective children?

Mr. WOOD: I may refer the hon. Member to the replies I gave on the 1st March last to the hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. Morrison), and on the 26th March to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson).

Mr. DARBISHIRE: 20.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he will give an assurance that the revised Regulations relating to special schools referred to in Circular 1297 will be submitted to the House for consideration before being put into force?

Mr. WOOD: I may refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on the 26th March to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson).

GRAMMAR SCHOOL, HUNTINGDON (MR. A. DE L. MANN).

Major ATTLEE: 22.
asked the President of the Board of Education why the Board has refused to sanction the payment by the Huntingdon Education Committee of the sum of £15 owing to Mr. A. de L. Mann, late assistant master at the Grammar School, Huntingdon, although the governors of the school agreed that he was entitled to receive this sum?

Mr. WOOD: I am not quite clear to what transaction the hon. and gallant Member is referring. The Board recently ascertained that the rate of salary fixed by the local education authority for Mr. Mann on the 31st March, 1922, appeared to be in excess of the rate as calculated in accordance with the Burnham Report and the Board's circulars thereon. The Board have informed the authority that they are prepared to reconsider the amount of the salary which they can recognise for grant, on receipt of satisfactory evidence as to the length of Mr. Mann's service.

HILLSBOROUGH (SHEFFIELD) COMMERCIAL SCHOOL.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: 23.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the day commercial school at Hillsborough, Sheffield, is being closed down this week almost without notice, and that this decision is resented by the parents of the students concerned; whether he has been consulted on the matter; and will he take all possible steps to arrange for the continuance of this medium of training, especially in view of the present unemployment situation?

Mr. WOOD: I have not yet seen any correspondence upon this matter, but am making inquiries and will write to the hon. Member.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Will the Parliamentary vacation interfere with this matter?

Mr. WOOD: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Parliamentary vacation makes no difference at all to the efficiency of my office.

GRANTS, WALTHAMSTOW.

Mr. McENTEE: 24.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the assessable value per scholar in Hornsey is £105 and in Hendon £103, whilst in the neighbouring district of Walthamstow it is only £24; that whereas a 1d. rate in Hornsey produces 7s. 10d. per child in average attendance in the schools, a 1d. rate in Walthamstow only produces 1s. 11d. per child; that in 1914–15 the grant made to Walthamstow, as a highly rated area, amounted to over £31,000, whereas in 1920–21 it had been reduced to less than £14,000, although
the financial condition of the town is now much worse than in the first-named period; that, as a consequence of the low assessable value of the town, efficient education can only be provided by imposing crippling rates on the citizens; and whether, in view of the very serious hardship that is being caused by these conditions, he will give a more sympathetic consideration to Walthamstow, and other districts in a,similar financial condition, when the grants to highly rated areas are under consideration in his Department?

Mr. WOOD: The figures as to assessable value and value of ld. rate per child are substantially correct. The comparison between the grants given to Walthamstow in 1914–15 and in 1920–21 is misleading; the total grant contained a greater allowance for the poverty and high rating of Walthamstow in 1920–21 than in 1914–15. The high rating of Walthamstow and other areas is receiving my sympathetic consideration in connection with the Regulations which will shortly be issued.

Mr. McENTEE: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of again reducing the sum, above which Grant is made from 48 pence to 40 pence?

Mr. WOOD: Yes. I have that matter at the present moment under consideration, and hope to be able to make a move in that direction.

STATE SERVANTS, PAY AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT.

COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY.

Mr. HOWARD: 30.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps, if any, have been taken or are proposed in order to give effect to the recommendation of the Geddes Committee that an inquiry should he made into the pay of the fighting services, teachers, and police?

Captain TERRELL: 49.
asked the Prime Minister, whether, seeing that the Geddes Committee suggested the appointment of a special committee or committees to inquire into the remuneration paid. to Government employés generally, such a committee has been appointed; and, if not, what are the intentions of the Government with respect to any future appointment?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Baldwin): The recommendation of the Geddes Committee was that a special investigation should be made into the pay of the fighting services, teachers and police. His Majesty's Government have carefully considered this recommendation. It appears to them, in view of the fact that Teachers and Police are employees of Local Authorities, that the pay of these services would more properly form the subject of separate inquiry, and that it would be desirable on the other hand to extend the scope of the recommendation of the Geddes Committee as applicable to State Servants so as to include the Civil Service as well as the Fighting Services. They have accordingly decided to set up an authoritative Committee to enquire into the present standard of remuneration and other conditions of employment of the various classes of State Servants employed in the Civil Service and in the three Fighting Services, and to make recommendations thereon. I am glad to be able to inform the House that the Government have been fortunate enough to secure the services for this purpose of the following gentlemen:
Sir Alan Garratt Anderson, K.B.E. (Chairman).
General the Hon. Sir Herbert Lawrence, K.C.B.
Sir W. Peter Rylands.
The Committee are being asked to include in their report a classified statement of increase in the numbers and cost of personnel in these Services consequent on duties imposed on them since July, 1914, and the expansion of duties then existing.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: Will it be competent for this Committee, or the Committee which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned a few days ago, to deal with the question of initial salaries of temporary ex-service men appointed to permanent posts?

Mr. BALDWIN: That will be within the competence of the Committee which I have just announced.

Captain TERRELL: Will the Committee have power to consider the consolidation of the Civil Service pay and bonuses?

Mr. BALDWIN: I could not answer that without notice.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will this Committee, in the course of its inquiries, look into the pay of the Members of the Government and especially the pensions drawn by ex-Lord Chancellors and ex-Cabinet Ministers?

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the appointment of Sir Peter Rylands to this Committee is intended as a confirmation or support of the claim of the Federation of British Industries that they obtain representation on practically all Government Committees?

Mr. BALDWIN: I think the experience of the gentlemen whose services we have secured will be sufficient.

Mr. HOGGE: Arising out of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary answer about the initial pay of temporary ex-service men, is he aware that he said it would be within the competence of the Committee, and will he say that it will be considered in fact? Will he also say. in view of the urgency of that particular question, that he will ask the Committee to address themselves to this question first?

Mr. BALDWIN: The question of the pay must necessarily be considered, but I will take the request of my hon. Friend into consideration.

Captain TERRELL: Will the Committee have power to recommend better treatment to the humbler grades of Civil servants if they think it necessary?

Mr. HERBERT FISHER: Am I right in assuming that the Government is not including teachers in this connection?

Mr. BALDWIN: That is so.

Captain TERRELL: May I have an answer to my question whether the Committee will have power to recommend better treatment for the humbler grades of Civil servants, if they consider it necessary?

Mr. BALDWIN: I should say so.

WAR LOANS (INVESTORS).

Sir FRANK SANDERSON: 31.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the aggregate number of investors of amounts of £100 and over in British war loan stocks, including the holders of war savings certificates?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) on the 6th March.

TAXATION.

Captain TERRELL: 33.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the present average per head of taxation, direct and indirect, in England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States of America?

Mr. BALDWIN: I will refer my hon. Friend to the answers which I gave to my hon. Friends the Members for East Lewisham (Lieut. - Colonel Assheton Pownall) and the Moseley Division (Mr. Hannon) on the 22nd and 27th February, respectively. These answers did not deal with the case of Germany. But estimates for that country taking account of recent changes in the value of the mark are not available.

EX-SERVICE MEN.

Civil Service.

Mr. R. MORRISON: 35.
asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed at the annual delegates' conference of the Association of Ex-Service Civil Servants, held at the Central Hall, Westminster, on the 21st March last, asking that effect should be given immediately to the promises made to ex-service men that they should have security of tenure in the Civil Service; and whether he can make any statement on the matter?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Major Boyd-Carpenter): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 27th March to the hon. and gallant Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Clifton Brown).

MENTAL CASES.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 55.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the desirability of getting ex-service men in asylums back to their pre-War work, he will consult with the Minister of Pensions as to whether the disability of two men, at present inmates of Banstead Asylum, can be shown to be due in the first instance to a blow upon the head sustained during warfare or training; and, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or no such an origin can be traced, will he see that the said two men, C. E. Babbs and C. S. Norris by name, be submitted to X-ray test, seeing that the disability of which each complains is such as can be shown in numerous other instances to be traceable to head injury?

Captain HACKING (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): The Board of Control have been in correspondence with the medical superintendent in regard to the suggestion that Norris should be submitted to X-ray examination of the head, and although there is no sign of any wound or evidence of concussion and it does not seem likely that such an examination would be of value, the authorities are willing to undertake it if the friends so desire. The question is still under consideration. As to the other case, the Board of Control will make further inquiries and my right hon. Friend will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

ISLAND OF LEWIS.

Sir W. COTTS: 66.
asked the Undersecretary to the Scottish Board of Health what the Government intend to do for ex-service men in the Western Isles, where in Lewis alone there are over 5,000 without means of support, as none of these men are entitled to unemployment benefit owing to their pre-War occupations being fishing and crofting, which are not normally insurable under the Act?

Mr. THOMSON: In order to relieve distress in the Western Isles a contribution from public funds has been sanctioned towards the cost of a number of road works, two of which were mentioned in the reply given to the hon. Baronet's question on the 26th March. The position as to distress in Lewis has received special attention from the Board of Health during the past year, and from
the information furnished by the Board my Noble Friend is satisfied that 5,000 is a greatly exaggerated estimate of the number of ex-service men in Lewis who are without means of support. So far as the men in question are crofters their previous occupation is available to them, and fishing contributes substantially to the subsistence of families in the Islands in spite of the existing depression in the industry.

AGRICULTURE.

DOMINION CATTLE.

Dr. CHAPPLE: 37.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether any inquiries have been made by the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of New Zealand for an extension of privileges in regard to the importation of live stock similar to those extended to Canada?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Robert Sanders): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Islington (Major-General Sir N. Moore) on 14th March in reply to a somewhat similar question. The position has been explained to the Government of New Zealand as well as to the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Mr. J. HOPE SIMPSON: Is it the policy of the Government to admit Empire fat cattle freely into this country for breeding purposes?

Sir R. SANDERS: I cannot add to what I have already said. The policy has been pretty generally stated.

Mr. MILLAR: 68.
asked the Undersecretary to the Scottish Board of Health the harbour or ship dues and other charges payable at the ports of Glasgow and Dundee, respectively, for vessels engaged in the Canadian cattle trade entering these ports, and also in respect of the Canadian livestock landed there, as compared with the corresponding dues and rates exacted at at English ports?

Mr. THOMSON: My Noble Friend is not in possession of the information desired by the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. MILLAR: Is it not the case that the Scottish Office have full information as to the dues payable at these ports, and, since this question which has arisen is one of great urgency, will the hon. Gentleman look into this matter, as the trade of Scotland is prejudiced?

Mr. THOMSON: All questions arising under the recent Importation of Animals Act, 1922, are under the control of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, and I would suggest that, if my hon. and learned Friend has any inquiries to make, they should be addressed to him.

Mr. MILLAR: Surely the Scottish Members are entitled to a reply on a matter which affects Scotland and Scottish dues?

Mr. THOMSON: Yes, and if my hon. and learned Friend will put down a question to the Minister whom I have mentioned, he will get the information as far as it is possible to give it.

Mr. HOGGE: Is it impossible, or do the officials at the Scottish Office not desire, to get this information for themselves and to know it?

CREDITS.

Sir F. SANDERSON: 39.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if a recommendation has been made by the Board of Trade that the agricultural credits which it is proposed to provide shall be effected through co-operative societies; and, if so, whether, seeing that such a course would grant preferential terms to cue selected class over any other, he will refuse his sanction to such a proposal.?

Sir R. SANDERS: I am not aware of any recommendation by the Board of Trade in regard to agricultural credits, but the recent Report of the Committee on this subject recommended the formation of agricultural co-operative credit societies, and provisions to give effect to this proposal will be included in the Bill which I hope to introduce shortly.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Do I understand from that reply that the policy of the Ministry will be to set up new credit societies and not to use the existing facilities?

Sir R. SANDERS: I think that the hon. Member had better wait for the Bill, when this matter can be fully discussed.

ECONOMIC CONDITION INQUIRY.

Captain TERRELL: 41.
asked the Minister of Agriculture when he expects the Report of the Committee inquiring into the economic condition of agriculture; whether this body is calling evidence; if so, how many witnesses have been heard to date, and what are the interests they have represented; whether it is receiving offers to give evidence or submit statements; whether any effect is given to these offers; and whether, in view of the present crisis in agriculture, he will expedite the deliberations of this Committee?

Commander BELLAIRS: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether he has received any indication from the chairman of the Commission inquiring into the state of agriculture as to the probable date their Report. will be in the hands of the Government?

Sir R. SANDERS: I understand that an Interim Report will be presented to the Prime Minister in the course of a few days. I am informed that many witnesses representing the- various interests involved have been called. The tribunal have received many offers to give evidence or submit statements and have. availed themselves of those offers as far as possible.

COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE.

Commander BELLAIRS: 45.
asked the Prime Minister, in view of the number of questions now dependent on the Committee of Imperial Defence, the impending Imperial Conference, and that the last discussion appears to have taken place on 29th July, 1909, whether he will arrange for the discussion of the Vote to be taken before the Session is well advanced?

Mr. BALDWIN: As my hon. and gallant Friend is no doubt aware, the choice of subjects for discussion on the Estimates does not rest with the Government.

PEACE TREATIES.

POLAND AND EASTERN GALICIA.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 50.
asked the Prime Minister whether papers will be laid on the reasons for the decision to allow the annexation of Eastern Galicia by the Polish Republic; and what steps are being taken to safeguard the rights of majorities in that country?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The reasons for the decision whereby East Galicia has been incorporated in the Polish State and the position with regard to the extent of the rights to be enjoyed by the local population were explained in my answers on 27th March and 21st March to questions by the hon. and gallant Member and by the hon. Member for Acton (Sir H. Brittain) respectively.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I have answer to the second part. of my question?

Mr. McNEILL: I said that the position with regard to the extent of the rights to be enjoyed by the local population had been explained.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the autonomy legislation has been passed by the Polish Diet., and in view of the interest taken in this question in this House will he secure. a copy of the legislation that has been passed, so that we may see what steps are being taken to protect the rights of these peoples?

Mr. McNEILL: That will probably be practical, and I shall certainly see if it can be done.

TURKEY.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 51
asked the Prime Minister, whether he can make any further statement on the conversations now proceeding in London on the terms of peace with Turkey; whether agreement has been reached between the Allies on these terms; and when and where the conference with the Turkish delegates is to he resumed?

Mr. McNEILL: Since putting clown this question, the hon. and gallant. Member will have seen the official statement. issued to the Press on the 27th instant
With regard to the last part of the question, I can make no statement until the reply of the Allied Governments to the Turkish counter proposals shall have reached the representatives of the Angora Government, when it will be published in this country.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Do I understand from that that the whole of the proceedings behind closed doors here in London are going to be published shortly?

Mr. McNEILL: I cannot say whether a procés-verbal will be published; I do not know.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the relevant papers be published?

Mr. McNEILL: I would not like to make a statement on that at the present moment: I do not know.

GERMAN REPARATION (POTASH).

Dr. CHAPPLE: 38.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has made any representations to the Reparation Commission that the Government is prepared to take large quantities of potash for the purposes of agriculture as payments on account of reparations?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: I have been asked to reply, as the Treasury is responsible for all communications to the Reparation Commission. Certain quantities of potash salts were supplied by Germany in 1919 to enable her to obtain credits for foodstuffs, and were distributed on the advice of the Ministry of Agriculture. As the value involved in the quantities likely to be required by this country was small in comparison with the total of reparations, and there were considerable difficulties in operating a satisfactory method of distribution, no further quantities were taken. I am to add that it would not be consistent with the policy of His Majesty's Government on reparations to demand large additional deliveries in kind. On this point I would refer the hon. Member to Command Paper 1812, page 115 and page 173.

Dr. CHAPPLE: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the question is not as to what relation the quantity received will hear to the total reparation, but whether the supply for agricultural purposes will be made more available for the agricultural industry of the country?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: I think if the hon Gentleman reads my reply he will see that it deals with that question.

SAAR BASIN.

Commander BELLAIRS: 73.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what nationalities compose the commission of five administering the Saar basin under the League of Nations; whether they are appointed for an indefinite period; and whether they are unanimous in desiring the present French garrison to remain?

Mr. McNEILL: The Governing Commission of the Saar consists of a citizen of France, a native inhabitant of the Saar Basin, not a citizen of France, and three persons belonging to countries other than France and Germany, who are at present of Belgian, Danish and Canadian nationality. These members of the Commission are appointed by the Council of the League of Nations for one year at. a time, but may be reappointed. I have no information as to the individual views of the Commissioners on any particular question.

EASTER (FIXED DATE).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 52.
asked the Prime Minister whether he has been informed of the widespread opinion in the commercial world in favour of a fixed season for Easter, and especially of the attitude taken up towards this question at the meeting of the international chambers of commerce in Rome, and that His Holiness the Pope, His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other religious leaders have expressed themselves as not hostile to this proposal; and whether His Majesty's Government will consider a circular note to the Christian Powers inviting a conference on this subject?

Mr. BALDWIN: I can add nothing to the answer given by the Prime Minister on the 28th February in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot).

PRIMROSE HILL (TREES).

Major BARNETT: 53.
asked the First Commissioner of Works who is responsible for the wholesale mutilation of the trees
on Primrose Hill; and whether an assurance can be given that similar methods will not be employed in the Regent's Park,

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir John Baird): The poplars on Primrose Hill were badly diseased, and the pruning was carried out after full consideration by experts as the only means of rendering them safe and healthy for many years. In Regent's Park the trees of this variety are few in number, but if found to be infected they will have to be treated similarly.

Major BARNETT: Is the right hon. Baronet aware that Primrose Hill now looks like a battle area on the Western front, and will he give an hour of his well-earned holiday to go and have a look at it?

Sir W. DAVISON: Will the right hon. Baronet consider the advisability of placing some hard wood trees, such as plane trees, between the mutilated poplars on Primrose Hill, which I saw a few days ago?

Sir J. BAIRD: I shall certainly consider the planes or, for the matter of that, ally other trees; but it is money of which we are short at the present time.

PALESTINE (LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL).

Sir F. SANDERSON: 60.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if lie will say, under the proposed scheme of a legislative council for Palestine, what would be the total number of votes available in the legislative council, including any casting or other vote or votes given, ex officio, to the High Commissioner; and what would be the respective percentage of voting power on the legislative council attainable by the electors of Palestine as compared with the voting power of the official element, including the casting vote of the High Commissioner?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): I would refer the hon. Baronet to my reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Bath (Capt. Foxcroft) on the 21st March, which gave the information for which he asks.

CEYLON (CONSTITUTION).

Mr. LINFIELD: 61.
asked the Under-Secretary of State, for the Colonies when the final proposals for the revision of the Constitution of Ceylon will be framed; and what opportunity will be given to this House to consider these proposals before they are embodied in an Order in Council?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Despatches on the subject of the revision of the Constitution have been laid before the Legislative Council of Ceylon and the matter will be further considered by the Secretary of State when he receives a report of the proceedings in the Council. It is not at present proposed that any special opportunity should be. given to the House to discuss these proposals, which can be discussed on the Colonial Office Estimates.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Seeing that three members of the Ceylon Legislative Assembly are in this country, will the hon. Gentleman or the Secretary of State receive a deputation from these gentlemen, with a view to them putting their views before the Secretary of State?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I shall be very glad to receive a deputation from the members of the Ceylon Legislative Council after the Easter holidays.

Mr. SHORT: When does the hon. Gentleman expect the Report of the Legislative Council?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I do not know if the discussions are actually finished, but I expect to receive a cable in due course.

Mr. LINFIELD: Are any of these proposals likely to be. operative before the Estimates are under discussion?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I do not know when the Opposition will ask for my Estimates.

DEPORTATIONS FROM IRELAND.

Mr. TREVELYAN: 62.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether be can make inquiries from the authorities of the Irish Free State as to whether Mr. Gilbert. Francis Barrington, a British subject whose home is in 90, Mowbray Road, South Shields, who was arrested on 26th February in Ireland and has been lying since in Mountjoy prison,
Dublin, without trial, can be allowed to see a solicitor and his brother who have so far been refused access to him?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am informed that no application has been received for a visit from a solicitor to this prisoner. A solicitor will be allowed to interview him conditionally on such solicitor signing the prescribed declaration. Visits from friends or relatives are not allowed to prisoners.

Mr. SHORT: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House any information regarding these deportees?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am afraid I have no further information.

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT, MANCHESTER.

Mr. GERALD HURST: 64.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the strike of the sheet-metal workers employed at Wilson's gas-meter works, Stockport Road, Manchester; that unemployment benefit has been refused to ordinary labourers who, though personally uninterested in the dispute, have lost their jobs as a result, of this strike; and, if such refusal is wrong, will he see that the benefit is duly paid?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow): I am making inquiries locally and will communicate the result to my hon. and learned Friend.

HOUSING.

PORTLAND CEMENT AND CAST-IRON PIPES.

Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS: 57.
asked the Minister of Health the prices of Portland cement per ton and of cast-iron pipes per ton at. July, 1914, December, 1921. and March, 1923; and whether the Committee on the price of building materials appointed by him will inquire into the cost of production of these articles, and ascertain whether the existing prices are due to the action of combines in those trades?

Captain HACKING: As the answer contains a tabular statement, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

According to the information available in my Department as regards London, the answer to the first part of the question is ac follows:

—
Portland Cement.
Cast Iron pipes (2½ "Rain Water)


July, 1914
37s. per ton
1s. 3d.peryard.


December, 1921
77s. 6d. per ton
4s. 2d.peryard.


March, 1923
58s. per ton
1s. 11d.peryard.

Investigation of the prices of these materials will fall within the scope of the Committee on the price of building materials.

SUBSIDY ( SCOTLAND).

Mr. CLARK HUTCHISON: (by Private Notice)
asked the Under-Secretary for Health for Scotland whether he is yet in a position to state the decision of the Government with regard to the amount of the subsidy per house to be paid in Scotland?

Mr. F. C. THOMSON (Lord of the Treasury): The Government after full consideration of all the circumstances have decided that it is not practicable to differentiate the conditions of subsidy in the two countries and accordingly the same conditions will apply in Scotland and in England.

Major BARNETT: Does not even £6 a year represent a very large number of bawbees?

Mr. MILLAR: Is it not the fact that a strong case has been made out for a. larger subsidy in Scotland, in view of the higher cost of building, owing to the stringer roofs and higher walls. and to the fact that stone is much more employed in Scotland?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for argument when the Bill comes up.

SCOTLAND.

TELEPHONE EXCHANGES.

Mr. MILLAR: 59.
asked the Postmaster-General the number of telephone exchanges and party lines operating in rural
areas, excluding burghs, in each county in Scotland, respectively?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks): Figures for individual counties are. not available, but there are in Scotland in rural areas 190 exchanges and 746 party lines in operation.

FISHING BOATS, WESTERN ISLES.

Sir W. COTTS: 65.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health if the Government will be willing to grant loans on easy terms to fishermen in the Western Isles for the replacement of boats which they had to leave behind when they joined up during the War and found useless on their return?

Mr. F. C. THOMSON: In view of the necessity for restricting Government expenditure, my Noble Friend regrets that he can hold out no hope of such loans being made. I would remind the hon. Baronet that. fishermen in the position stated in the Question had opportunities in the years following on the Armistice of making application for assistance under schemes financed from the Development Fund and from the funds at the disposal of the Military Service (Civil Liabilities) Department.

LIQUOR LICENCE, STORNOWAY.

Sir W. COTTS: 67.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether he is aware that there is a. wholesale liquor licence in Stornoway, which is a prohibition area; and whether immediate steps can be taken to withdraw such licence, as the benefits of prohibition are being annulled thereby?

Mr. THOMSON: I am aware that a "No Licence" resolution is in force in the Burgh of Stornoway, and I understand from Press reports that a wholesale excise licence is at present in force in Stornoway. The issue or withdrawal of such licences is not a matter in which the Secretary for Scotland has any powers.

GUARDS' MESS, ST. JAMES'S PALACE.

Mr. EDE: 69.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War the approximate daily average number of officers using the Guards' mess at St. James's Palace for the year ending 31st December, 1922?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Gwynne): I am informed that the average number of dinners served was something less than nine a day.

TECHNICAL SERVICES (NAVY,ARMY AND AIR FORCE).

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: 70.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War if His Majesty's Government has considered the Report of the Committee dealing with the co-ordination of the technical services of the Navy, Army and Air Force; if so, will he state what action, if any, is proposed as a result; and what opportunity will be given for such proposals to be considered and discussed by the House?

Mr. GWYNNE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and steps are being taken, particularly by the establishment of interdepartmental technical committees, to carry out the necessary detailed measures of co-ordination. With regard to the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which my hon. Friend gave him on the 22nd March, to the effect that it was not proposed to publish the Report of the Committee.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Are we to understand that this most vital decision with regard to some technical questions is being already acted upon without any report being made to this House or any opportunity being given for its discussion?

Mr. GWYNNE: Yes, Sir; it is a matter for the Cabinet.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Can the hon. Gentleman say why it was considered inadvisable to publish the particulars?

Mr. GWYNNE: Because it is not usual in cases of this kind, and there is no intention of departing from what is usual.

ROYAL NAVY (PARCELS, TURKISH WATERS).

Dr. CHAPPLE: 74.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been drawn to the number of cases in which parcels addressed to the
men of the Fleet stationed in Turkish waters fail to reach the addresses or are delayed for many weeks and whether he can take any steps to meet the difficulty?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Commander EyresMonsell): Owing to lack of accommodation, parcels are not accepted for conveyance on the Simplon Orient express trains, and parcels for ships in Turkish waters have, therefore, to be sent by sea. There are three services a month from Marseilles to Constantinople, and one a month from the United Kingdom, and the time taken in transit is about a month. Opportunity is taken to forward parcels in any British warship proceeding to Turkish waters where a gain in time would result, and the Post Office is notified of such opportunities. I have no information as to the loss of any parcels in transit.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.

Mr. HOGGE: On a point of Order. Are we going over Questions a second time?

Mr. SPEAKER: No; that is never allowed to late comers on these last days before the Recess.

Mr. HOGGE: is there any Standing Order which prevents us from asking questions up to a Quarter to Four?

Mr. SPEAKER: No: original questions could be asked until that time, but, if the hon. Member will look at the precedents, he will see that it is not allowable to go Over them again. Otherwise, Members might deliberately stay away and, coming late, might come in on the second, third, fourth or fifth round. I could not allow that.

BUILDING TRADES DISPUTE.

Mr. Mc ENTEE: (by Private Notice)
asked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been called to the statement in the Press, to the effect that the Master Builders' Association propose issuing lock-out Notices to the men engaged in the building trades: and whether his Department proposes to take any steps to prevent a stoppage in view of the serious consequences that would
result to the nation, as a consequence of such stoppage in building at the present time?

Sir M. BARLOW: I have been keeping in close touch with the situation indicated in the hon. Member's question, and shall continue to do so. I do not think I can usefully add more at the present moment.

Mr. McENTEE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the men are now working under a sliding scale based on the cost of living, and that they have already forfeited voluntarily 1½d. an hour to.which they are at present entitled; and is he also aware that the present action of the Master Builders' Federation is a direct breach of the existing agreement which they have signed?

Sir M. BARLOW: All those are matters of argument, and I think that, in the present. state of the negotiations, it would be very much better not to discuss those, points on the Floor of the House.

Mr. McENTEE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the representatives of the men are very anxious again to meet the Master Builders' Federation, with a view to arriving at a settlement, if possible, and will he, in view of that fact, use his influence with the Master Builders' Federation to bring about such a meeting'?

Sir M. BARLOW: I have already given the assurance that I shall keep.in very close touch with, the situation. I am sure that no one is more anxious than every Member of this House that some satisfactory solution should be arrived at.

BUDGET ANTICIPATIONS.

Mr. A. LEACH: (by Private Notice)
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the statements contained in the "Daily Express" of this morning, in which certain. definite Budget proposals are set forth on what purports to be his authority, and that a certain account is also given of alleged Cabinet Discussions on the proposals; if so what action he proposes to take in the matter.

Mr. BALDWIN: I have not seen the article in question, but the hon. Member was good enough to speak to me as I was entering the House to-day, and showed
me the article in question. There is not a syllable of truth in it from beginning to end. It. is pure invention and reflects great credit on the imagination of the author. The steps I propose to take are to introduce my Budget on 16th April.

Mr. LEACH: In view of the fact that the principal owner of this journal, who is eking out a precarious livelihood by these disreputable meanings, is also. —[Interruption.]

Mr. HOGGE: If there is no syllable of truth in the report, how is it that great credit is due to the imagination of the man who wrote it?

Mr. SPEAKER: The Chancellor's humour aid not penetrate the Scottish mind.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. TREVELYAN: I wish to ask a question in connection with the business on Monday, when we resume. I asked yesterday whether the Special Constables Bill was going to be printed. It has not yet. been distributed, and it is not in the, Vote Office.

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: It will be in the Vote Office this afternoon at 3 o'clock, and circulated on Saturday.

Mr. TREVELYAN: Does that give us an opportunity of putting down a Motion for the rejection if we find it unsatisfactory

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Yes, I think so.

Mr. TREVELYAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is a satisfactory procedure to put down a Motion for the rejection of a Bill which we do not see on the mere chance of its being a bad one, and would not a much better plan be to put the Bill down on a subsequent day?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: It is perfectly easy to move the rejection on the day it is discussed here.

Mr. TREVELYAN: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether that is a satisfactory procedure that those who are opposed to the Bill should not be able to put down a Motion, and therefore the House should not know that the Bill is going to be opposed or should put down a Motion for rejection on the chance of wanting to oppose it?

Mr. McENTEE: May I also ask what opportunities there will be for putting down Amendments to the Bill?

Mr. BALDWIN: That will be on the Committee stage.

ROYAL ASSENT.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went, and, having returned,

Mr. Speaker reported the Royal Assent to

(1) Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Act., 1923.

(2) Unemployment Insurance Act, 1923.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Before further business is proceeded with, might I press the Chancellor of the Exchequer to postpone the introduction of the Special Constables Bill, in order to give us an opportunity of seeing whether we want to oppose it or not? It is particularly necessary that we should consider the Bill before moving its rejection. As the Bill has not yet been printed and circulated we should be glad if the Second Reading could be postponed from the Monday when the House reassembles to some day later, so that it can be properly examined.

Mr. BALDWIN: I am very sorry that. I cannot accede to that request. When we resume we shall he pressed for time. The Bill will be in the Vote Office this afternoon, and that will give the hon. and gallant Member the opportunity he desires. It. will be perfectly open to him to move the rejection of the Bill, even without. putting clown a Motion. I am afraid that I cannot see my way to alter the announcement which I made yesterday.

Mr. J. H. SIMPSON: This gives us no chance of putting clown Amendments to the Bill.

Mr. BALDWIN: The hon. Member is in error. Amendments are only put down when the Bill goes to the Committee stage.

Sir JOHN SIMON: It does not give opportunity for putting down a reasoned Amendment on the Second Reading.

Mr. BALDWIN: I think there will be time this afternoon.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to:

Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, without Amendment.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE (EASTER).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House, at its rising this Day, do adjourn until Monday, 9th April." [Mr. Baldwin.]

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to move to leave out the words "at its rising this day." I think it is about time that we returned to constitutional practice, and dropped this method of moving the Adjournment. Previously, and up to a time well into the War period, the Motion was "That this House do adjourn until such and such a day. Recently the innovation has been adopted of inserting the words" at its rising this day." I understand that the original change was made in order to meet the eccentricities of all ex-Member for Hertford. He is no longer a Member of this House, and we might now get back to the ordinary constitutional practice. In the old days it used to be necessary for the Government to keep a House on the Adjournment debate in order, if necessary. to closure the debate, or to close the debate without a count. Now the responsibility for keeping a House has been transferred from the Government to the Opposition. Unless we keep a House, the House will be counted out, and it he counted out the right, of private Members to bring up any subject. in the debate on the Adjournment is lost. It is not from the point of view of the Official Opposition that I am speaking, because the Official Opposition can make terms with the Government so that the House can be kept; but it is for the individual Members, whether on the Government side or on the Opposition side, that I make this appeal.
12 N.
Until the change in practice, hon. Members knew that they could be heard on the Adjournment debate. They knew perfectly well that they could bring forward any grievance of their constituents, irrespective of whether that grievance was approved of by the leaders of their party or by the House as a whole. There was an opportunity for debating every subject. The dispute in the building trade and in the Norfolk agricultural industry could he fully discussed under the old system. What will happen to-day? As soon as the arranged debate on Education and Russia has gone through, the benches will empty. Members will go
home and a count will be moved. We may be able to keep 40 members here, but I am afraid it is not very likely on the-eve of the Easter holiday. The result will be that about 4 o'clock the House will be counted out. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am well aware that hon. Members opposite do not wish to debate-anything. There are some Members who take their duties to their constituents seriously, and they have a right to put their views before the House and get an answer from the Government. Under the new system they have no such chance. We have got back to constitutional methods so far as returning to private Members, private Members time, which was taken from them four years after the War, and it is time we got back to the constitutional practice in regard to the Motion for the Adjournment. We have got back to constitutional methods in having a, regular opposition and regular Government. Cannot we also get back to the regular position of having on the adjournment opportunity for free-debate for private Members? We are often charged on these benches with being anti-constitutionalists. It is the Government, by adopting this method of silencing debate, who are really breaking the constitutional practice which we desire to see restored.

Mr. SPEAKER: The only Amendment which can be accepted on this Motion is an Amendment as to the time of the adjournment.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it not possible to restore the old principle by an Amendment? If it is not possible on this occasion, on what occasion is it possible.?

Mr. HOGGE: Is it not in Order to amend the method of the Adjournment and is not this Amendment an alteration of the method of Adjournment?

Mr. TREVELYAN: What course would be adopted by the Government if they accepted the view of my hon. and gallant Friend, and wanted to return to the old practice? How can they do it except by this Amendment?

Mr. SPEAKER: In the circumstances,. I will accept the Amendment.

Mr. HOGGE: I beg to second the Amendment.
This is a point which I have raised continuously ever since the change was made. A substantial grievance is involved. During the last two days we have been discussing various topics on the Consolidated Fund Bill. The various larger parties, and even apart from them occasional groups are enabled by arrangement with the Chair and the Government to get time to discuss various topics. But other topics which private Members desire to raise can only be raised on the adjournment. In the old days it was the duty of the Government to keep a House, and they always had control over the fractious introduction of subjects. If a private Member desired to detain the House on the Amendment on a trivial subject the Government always had the weapon of the Closure. But if the private. Member is raising a substantial point surely, in the interests of his constituents, it is the duty of the Government to see that he receives time to put it.
The real objection is that the Government cannot carry the closure unless they have a certain number of Members present, and their desire to let their supporters away is expressed by this method of adjournment. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to restore the old practice of suppressing trivial discussion by the use of the closure, and avoiding the scandal by which sonic Member often in a jocular fashion draws attention to the fact, that not 40 Members are present at a moment when some private Member is for the first time getting an opportunity of rotting some point of great substance to his constituents. I believe that the kind of camaraderie which exists in this House should extend to the point of providing a private Member with one of the very few opportunities which he can have. This is a private Member's privilege; we ought to be jealous of any of those privileges being surrendered. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer adopts this suggestion he will have the general support of the House always in suppressing trivial discussion, and he will restore the old feeling which used to exist in the House of Commons on those occasions.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: I would make a special appeal to the Chancellor of Exchequer that it would be a graceful thing if he would accept the Amendment without a division. The point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr.
Hogge) affects Sheffield Members to a considerable extent. There is a matter of vital principle involving the imprisonment of a leader of the unemployed people in Sheffield about which we have had no opportunity of speaking until to-day. We only got letters from the Home Secretary at a comparatively late-hour last night, and there is a grave risk, unless the Government give us an opportunity of debate, of a very serious position arising in regard to similar instances all over the country.

The CHANCELLOR of the EX-CHEQUER (Mr. Baldwin): I was interested to hear my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment base his appeal to the House on constitutional usage, and when I remind him of what he has possibly forgotten—that the old constitutional usage is precisely the one which we are adopting to-day—I am sure he will not press his Amendment. The first time when the form which he desires to use was used, as far as I have been able to ascertain, was about 30 years ago. The form which we have put down to-day was the universal practice until about the year 1892. After having tried for a long period in the lifetime 'of Members of Parliament, but a. short period in the life of Parliament itself, the method which he now suggests, it was found to be for the convenience of the greater number of Members to go back to the old form, and thus preserve, as far as we are able the historic continuity. I am as jealous as any man in this House of the rights of private Members, but I am certain that as long as topics of interest and substance are raised, hon. Members wilt remain to listen to what is said, and take part in the discussion. But it has been found in practice, as Members who have. sat in this House for some years are well aware, that the traditions of this House' have been stretched unduly at times, and inconvenience has been caused to the majority of Members who are anxious to get away for their holidays; and the same applies also to the staff of this House. I see no reason to accept this Amendment, and I hope that after what has been said, my hon. Friend will join me in helping to preserve what is the constitutional usage.

Mr. PRINGLE: I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen his way to accede to the reasonable request which has been made. I cannot accept alto
gether the somewhat curious doctrine of historic continuity which he has put before the House. I cannot claim to have such a long continuous acquaintance with the practice of the House as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but the recollection which I have of my early years in the House is that at that time this form was not employed, and that free opportunity was given to all Members, no matter how small the minority which they represented, to ventilate any grievance which affected either their constituents or any other section of the public, on the adjournment of this House, at any of the regular periods. There bas been, and there still is a certain number of independent Members of this House who have no party behind them, and who on occasions may desire to bring subjects before the House, and obtain a reply from the Government. If this Motion is passed, in the form in which it is put down by the Government, it would be a simple matter for the Government to bring the discussion to an end, and relieve themselves of any embarrassment which may be occasioned by debate.
When right hon. Gentlemen plead for the general convenience of Members, I always suspect that they are not so much concerned about the convenience of Members as about their own convenience. [HON. MEMBERS: "No! "] The Convenience of Members or the public interest is a formula to enable Ministers, to whatever party they belong, to get out of embarrassment. It is a simple matter for the Government to have the question disposed of by counting out the House. I know something of the question which has been raised by the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander). It is true that that is only an individual grievance, but it raises a large question of principle, which may apply to many cases all over the country, and nevertheless that topic may be closed out to-day as a result of the operation of this Motion. I recollect another occasion when a similar issue arose, and by this means the discussion of certain points was avoided on the Easter adjournment. Had it taken place then the matter would have been brought not only to the notice of the Government but to the notice of the public, and the abuse to which attention was to have been
called might have been remedied. As it was the abuse was allowed to go on, because it was not publicly ventilated, and two months later the Government were forced on Supply to grant a committee of inquiry into the matter, and that committee of inquiry proved up to the hilt the soundness of the claim which the hon. Member intended to make on the adjournment, but was prevented by this means from making.
I put it to hon. Members opposite that this is a matter in which they are interested. They may not sit always on these benches; their tenure there may be somewhat precarious. The time may come when they will have to cross over to this side of the House and plead for tender mercy from other occupants of the Treasury bench. It is therefore well for them, though they are sitting as supporters of the Government now, to have regard for the interests of private Members, and to show that they desire the rights of private Members to continue unimpaired, and that they desire to see also all public grievances ventilated in this House. This is one of the great constitutional opportunities which has come down to us. It represents the historic function of this House as the grand inquest of the nation. As time has gone on. private Members' opportunities have been progressively limited. This is one of these opportunities which has survived in spite of the encroachments of the Government. This Motion, passed it is true on many previous occasions, represents a further encroachment on these privileges. We have this afternoon an opportunity once more of re-asserting the privileges of the House, and I hope, therefore, that hon. Members opposite, who boast of being constitutionalists, and who are anxious to see constitutional forms and methods continue unimpaired in this country, will show themselves jealous of the rights of the House of Commons. It is not a matter for derision; it is a serious matter, and I am, indeed, surprised to find hon. Members, who call themselves Conservatives, and who are anxious to see bulwarks against revolutionary designs, jeering the sincere effort which is now being made to safeguard the interests of this House and to protect the interests of the public. I make an appeal to them to cast aside their prejudices.
I believe that there never has been a time up till now in which in a case of this kind a voice has not been raised from the Ministerial benches on behalf of the rights of this House. I remember, in the Parliaments of 1906 and 1910 when similar action was being taken, that there were at least a few Ministerial Members who were prepared to champion the rights of the [louse as against the encroachments of the Government. I am quite sure that if tie right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) had been here this afternoon he would have supported me. After all, he has some respect for the traditions of this House. He has shown it time and again I only regret that there are so few hon. Members opposite who share his spirit. [Laughter.] I am surprised that it should be a matter of derision when one refers in terms of praise to the action—the consistent action—which has been taken by the Member of this House who most truly embodies the Conservative spirit. I have often had the privilege of winking in co-operation with the right hon. Gentleman in matters of this kind. It has always been the pride of this House that on a constitutional issue which is of common interest there were Members on both sides who were willing to co-operate, and it is a sorry day for the Constitution of this country that this honourable tradition should now be departed from. I, therefore, make this appeal perfectly seriously, and I regret that hon. Members who call themselves Conservatives should

show themselves not only impervious to that appeal, but derisive when it is made. I hope, in spite of the line that the Government has adopted, that the House will be divided, and that an opportunity will be given to hon. Members opposite, who profess themselves Conservatives, of showing their faith in, and their loyalty to, the constitutional traditions of the House of Commons.

Lieut.-Colonel DALRYMPLE WHITE: I am quite sure that any stranger, listening to this Debate, and ignorant of the forms of the House, would imagine that it requires several hundred Members to keep a quorum in order to continue the Debate, whereas the fact is that 40 Members form a quorum. The Opposition number some 260 Members, and if the subject be of sufficient interest, they can surely keep a quorum. It is said that it is necessary to preserve the rights of Back bench Members, so that they may ventilate the grievances of their constituents or others. But in my experience, which now dates back a considerable time, it is not very often that the shrinking back bencher speaks. The whole of the time is taken up by very loquacious Members, such as the hon. Member to whom we have just listened.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 127; Noes.. 63.

Division No. 70.]
AYES.
[12.20 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.


Archer-Shee, Lieut-Colonel Martin
Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Herbert, S. (Scarborough)


Astbury, Lieut-Corn. Frederick W.
Conway, Sir W. Martin
Hiley, Sir Ernest


Baird, Rt. Hon. Sir John Lawrence
Cope, Major William
Hoare, Lieut. Colonel Sir S. J. G.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)


Balfour, Georqe (Hampstead)
Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard


Banks, Mitchell
Davidson, J. C. C.(Hemel Hempstead)
Hopkins, John W. W.


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)


Barnston, Major Harry
Dawson, Sir Philip
Houfton, John Plowright


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Doyle. N. Grattan
Howard, Capt. D. (Cumberland, N.)


Bennett, Sir T. J. (Sevenoaks)
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Hudson, Capt. A.


Betterton, Henry B.
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Hughes, Collingwood


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Erskine-Boist, Captain C.
Hume, G. H.


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Hurst, Lt.-Cot. Gerald Berkeley


Boyd-Carpenter. Major A.
Falcon, Captain Michael
Hutchison, G. A. C. (Midlothian, N.)


Brass, Captain W.
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William


Bridgeman. Rt. Hon. William Clive
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Kelley, Major Fred (Rotherham)


Briggs, Harold
Fremantie. Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
King, Capt. Henry Douglas


Bruford, R.
Furness. G. J.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Buckingham, Sir H.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Lloyd Grearne, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Ganzoni, Sir John
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)


Button, H. S.
Gates, Percy
Lorden, John William


Cadogan, Major Edward
Gaunt, Rear-Admiral sir Guy R.
Lorimer, H. D.


Campion. Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Lumley, L. R.


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Halstead, Major D.
Margesson, H. D. R.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)


Churchman. Sir Arthur
Harrison, F. C.
Molloy, Major L. G. S.


Cobb Sir Cyril
Hawke. John Anthony
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Morden, Col. W. Grant
Ruggies-Brise, Major E.
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honlton)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Watts, Dr. T. (Man., Withington)


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sanders, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert A.
Wells, S. R.


Newson, Sir Percy Wilson
Sanderson, Sir Frank B,
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Sandon, Lord
Whitla, Sir William


Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)
Shepperson, E. W.
Wise, Frederick


Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Shipwright, Captain D.
Wolmer, Viscount


Nield, Sir Herbert
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Ormsby-Gore. Hon. William
Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-in-Furness)
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Paget, T. G.
Stott, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Yerburgh, R. D. T.


Parker, Owen (Kettering)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-



Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Rentoul, G. S.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Colone Gibbs.


Robertson, J. D. (Islington, W.)
Tryon, Rt. Hon, George Clement



Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.



NOES


Adams, D.
Hayes, John Henry (Edge Hill)
Ponsonby, Arthur


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro)
Henderson, Sir T. (Roxburgh)
Pringle, W. M. R.


Attlee, C. R.
Hill, A.
Riley, Ben


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertiliery)
Hogge, James Myles
Roberts, C. H. (Derby)


Bonwick, A.
Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)
Robinson, W. C. (York, Elland)


Brotherton, J.
Jones, R. T. (Carnarvon)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)
Jowett, F. W. (Bradford, East)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Cotts, Sir William Dingwall Mitchell
Kenworthy, Lieut. Commander J. M.
Simpson, J. Hope


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Leach, W.
Stephen, Campbell


Ede, James Chute
Lee, F.
Sturrock, J. Long


Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)
M'Entee, V. L.
Thome, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Evans, Capt. H. Arthur (Leicester, E.)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I,
Trevelyan, C. P.


Foot, Isaac
March, S.
Turner, Ben


George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)
Maxton, James
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Gosling, Harry
Middleton, G.
Weir, L. M.


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Millar, J. D.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Gray, Frank (Oxford)
Morel, E. D.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Groves, T.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Guthrie, Thomas Mauie
Mosley, Oswald
Wright, W.


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Murray, John (Leeds, West)



Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Oliver, George Harold
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Harris, Percy A.
Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)
Mr. Ammon and Sir A. Marshall.


Main Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
 That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn until Monday, 9th April.

EDUCATION.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Sir JOHN SIMON: Before the House rises—and I hope before the House is counted out—I desire to call attention to the present position of public education in this country and to the attitude of the Board of Education towards educational progress as illustrated by recent departmental action. I well understand that at this time hon. Members do not desire to be offered any flowers of rhetoric but are much more concerned in getting away to seek the flowers of Spring, and therefore I do not propose to speak at length or elaborately, but to content myself with calling attention to a number of definite matters which I think ought to be raised before the House separates.
This is a subject which has hardly been mentioned since the Session began. It is a subject on which we have had no debate
either in Government time or at the instigation of private Members, and at the same time it is a subject which lies at the root of domestic progress. It constitutes a main element in the strength and the influence of our country throughout the world, and it calls for the urgent attention of the House and of the public. Since the Session began we have had six debates on the Ruhr: we have had several debates on unemployment and on housing. The House will not grudge, therefore, a short time to consider how this matter of educational administration now stands.
The recent action of the Board of Education in two or three matters to which I wish to call attention is action in directions which seem to me to retard rather than to promote public education and to justify some challenge and to call for some defence. The urgency of the matter is increased by the circumstance that the Education Act of 19TS, with which the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Mr. Fisher) will always be honourably associated, was admittedly the greatest educational advance of the last 50 years. It is common knowledge that important
parts of it are in a state of suspended operation. If, indeed, the betrayal of the ideals expressed in that Act were to take place, that would constitute the gravest of all the backslidings of the last four years. The position is this: The proposals of the Act of 1918, and still more the spirit in which those proposals were conceived, became involved in the general ruin which overtook elaborate schemes of all sorts when at, length the extravagance and the waste of recent years in every direction frightened the country into a fit of indiscriminate economy.
It is a literal fact that, if everybody who is really devoted to the cause of public education—convinced, as every educationist must have been, of the importance of securing educational progress—if every educationist two or three or four years ago had joined in the crusade to provide money for useful social services by cutting down with an unsparing hand unproductive waste in other directions, then the story of public education during the last few years would have been very different from what it is. As it. is, the most vital and the most productive of public services has sustained a serious set-back owing to the general outcry against unproductive expenditure. It appears sometimes almost as though in these latter days the Board of Education was acting merely as an outpost of the Treasury, cutting down and limiting educational standards, and putting forward, indeed, definitely retrograde proposals. I am all for seeing that the money spent on education is not wasted, and that the objects to which it is devoted are objects which can be justified by the circumstances of the time. But it is lamentable, if it can be shown to be the fact, that the Board of Education should be promoting changes which are retrograde rather than progressive. Let me give an example.
Shortly before the War, at a time when the Minister of Education was, I think, Mr. Pease, the present Lord Gainford, the Board of Education took so strong a view as to the educational inefficiency of a system of unduly large classes that it proceeded to fine the London County Council; it deprived the London County Council of a substantial part of what would otherwise have come to it; that is to say, deprived it of an amount of
£10,000, because of the undue size of the classes in the Metropolitan area. The London County Council then set to work, in consultation with the Board of Education, to remedy that state of affairs. Under pressure from the Board and in consultation with the Board they settled a scheme, which was to operate for 15 years, to reduce the size of classes in Metropolitan schools and to increase the number of schools. The scheme was that the maximum size of a class of boys or girls should he reduced to 40, and in the case of infants to 48. What has happened? The London County Council bought the sites for building additional schools; they were forced to buy the sites. They made their plans for this new development, and they were in course of carrying out the scheme when matters were suspended by the War. Now that the War is over now that we have had four years of so called peace, the Board of Education itself will not permit the London County Council to resume the carrying out of the very scheme which was previously urged. The London County Council has the sites, and the Board of Education will not permit the Council to build upon them.
You have this situation—that whereas some years ago the Board of Education was imposing a very severe penalty on the Metropolitan authority, fining it £10,000 in order to secure that, a better system should he adopted and applied, the Board is now saying in reference to that very system that it will not permit the London County Council to carry through its plan. That seems to me to be an illustration of a very serious change in outlook and tempez. I see my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education opposite, and I ask him, am I not right in saying that the Board are vetoing the proposals for smaller classrooms in certain new schools which must be built on new housing estates? One would have thought that if there was any topic in educational arrangements where there was really no room for dispute it, was this, that large classes not only operate against educational efficiency, but, if they are allowed to become too large, become a positive scandal of educational inefficiency. The statistics of public education for England and Wales for the last available year were published the other day. I think they are for 1920. If you take the view that 40 boys or 40 girls is the largest
number that can be efficiently taught in a single class by the same teacher at the same time, half the classes in the country are too large. If you take the view that 50 children in a class is more than can be efficiently taught by a single teacher, more than one quarter of the classes in our elementary schools throughout the country are definitely too large.
The returns show that the total number of classes in elementary schools in England and Wales was 350,559. The classes consisting of boys and girls from 40 to 49 numbered 39,039; classes of between 50 children and 59 numbered 31,204. There are even classes containing more than 60 children, to which an unfortunate teacher is expected to give one and the same lesson. There are apparently classes of 60 or over in no fewer than 6,970 eases. All of us, I hope, would desire to see every effort made to secure that public money is prudently spent on education. Waste is no more justified in education than in anything else. The worst of all waste is to spend large sums of money on education under conditions which cannot possibly produce satisfactory results.
I take next, as a practical illustration of what I mean, the provision of free places in our secondary schools. What is the good of talking about the ladder of education and about the supreme importance of securing that even the poorest child, if it has sufficient ability, should be able to pass from the elementary school to the secondary school and from the secondary school to the University, unless we preserve to an adequate extent the system of providing free places for children in our secondary schools? The old principle used to be that 25 per cent. of the places in a secondary school which is assisted from public funds were to be free places. That used to be the minimum number. But. 25 per cent. is no longer the minimum number; by recent regulations of the Board of Education it has in effect become the maximum number of places. An answer was given two or three weeks ago to the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander), from which it appeared that the Board of Education were authorising the provision of places substantially fewer than 25 per cent, in a large number of secondary schools assisted out of public funds. I have extracted these figures from the
answer: One - hundred - and - fifty - five secondary schools now receive State grants, although they offer less than 25 per cent. of free places. Out of those 155 secondary schools, no fewer than 98 are in receipt of aid from the local educational authority as well as from the Board of Education.
In the West Riding of Yorkshire, I was told the other day, you might take secondary schools in one of the areas there as offering education which cost about £30 per child per annum to provide, but the fee which is charged to the parent sending his child there is not at all £30 but is more like £9 or £10 per annum. In view of the fact that education in secondary schools is, in any event., to a large extent the subject of subvention from public funds it seems to me more than ever wrong to cut down the number of free places which are, available for the children of the very poor. I do not want to see any child getting an exceptional advantage merely because that child comes from a poor home, but I do want to be sure that the system which we are now following does not. penalise the child who comes from a poor home, but gives the most deserving child the opportunity for further advance and gives an equal chance to all children from whatever sort of homes they have come. Let us consider the ladder of education at the other end. The Board in the course of the last two years has abolished or perhaps, I should say, suspended, the award of State scholarships tenable in the Universities. I have here the actual announcement which was made:
 The Government have decided that no new award of State scholarships shall he made in the financial years 1922–23 and 1923–1924 hut that the question shall be reviewed at the end of two years.
Anybody who has gone to a University with the help of a scholarship realises the big hardship which is imposed upon a child who may come from some humble home, a child, it may he, who succeeds in winning a scholarship or exhibition from a college of the University, but who, none the less, does not get that additional assistance which enable a child to take advantage of its own success. It seems to me there is no possible justification, whatever be the hard times through which we have to pass, for breaking down for the time being this ladder of education, which in any case is so precariously
poised, by cutting out at the one end free places in secondary schools and at the other end threatening the scheme for providing State scholarships. Everybody appreciates now, though they did not soma years ago, that it was necessary we should pay for the War ourselves. My submission is that however we do that, however great the burden may be, we have no right to make the children of this country pay for the War.
In the third place, may I take what appears to be a definitely retrograde policy which is being followed in dealing with special classes of children who need special treatment and special teaching. The English educational system has undoubtedly led the way in some parts of the country, as regards the provision of special schools for the blind, for the deaf, for the mentally defective, for the physically defective and for the tuberculous. I do not know any better system of schools in the world than that which is to be found in London for these special purposes. They are the best organised in the world, and they are linked to a system of medical inspection and sometimes medical treatment for which the Board of Education must be given the greatest credit and which has done a great deal to make the money spent on education better worth while. As against that, a circular was issued by the Board of Education on 29th January last which threatened the efficiency of these special schools not only in London but in the provinces. It is a circular which, as one can well appreciate, may be insisted upon by the Treasury officials, but I think it will strain the ingenuity of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, to suggest that it is a circular which the Board of Education can justify. It is a circular which, in effect, aims at increasing the size of the classes in these schools, and if there is any kind of class which needs not to be too large, it is a class under special teachers trying to deal with afflicted children. The circular also aims at the introduction of unqualified persons as teachers. I do not believe any Minister of Education would really seek to justify the handing over of these afflicted children in larger classes to teachers who have not been efficiently trained for the purpose of dealing with them. In the same way, the dilution of the teaching profession by unqualified
teachers is going on in many of the infant schools of the country. It is easy to say that any intelligent woman can do all that is necessary in the teaching of very small children, but it is not true. The whole result of educational science and of the application of psychology to the business of training the infant mind, goes to show that there is no branch of educational service where it is more important to secure that the teaching is done by people who know what they ought to aim at doing and who are trained in the way to do it.
I only mention in passing the subject of the feeding of school children. I know it is urged by the Board of Education that this is not primarily or properly an educational function at all. I do not mind who does it, as long as it is done with intelligence, with thoroughness and, of course, without extravagance. I would point out however that the House of Commons and the country are committed to the proposition that the local educational authorities have a responsibility in this regard. May I remind the house of the actual language of the Act. The act first requires that the local education authority shall be satisfied
that children attending elementary schools within their area are unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them.
Secondly, it lays clown the condition that the local education authority has
ascertained that funds, other than public funds, are not available or are insufficient in amount to defray the cost of the food furnished in meals under the Act,
and if these two conditions are satisfied then the local education authorities
may apply to the Board of Education and that Board may authorise them to spend out of the rates, such sum as will meet the cost of the provision of such food, provided the total amount expended for the purposes of the Section in any financial year, shall not exceed…a rate of ½d. in the £.
That is a deliberate policy adopted by Parliament and the announcement of an intention to cut down the amount so spent, calls for the special attention of all who are interested in the education of children. It is a horrible thought that we in this country should adopt the principle of compulsory elementary education, and at the same time not make effective provision to secure that the children who are being educated are sufficiently fed. If ever there was an
example of the misdirected use of public funds and of the waste which may be involved in mistaken forms of economy, it is to be found in a failure to secure that children who are being taught are reasonably well fed. I do not believe there is any single item in the Education Estimates which involves so serious a cut as the cut in the special services, and I call the attention of my hon. Friend to the anxiety which so many people feel as to the present situation in that respect.
Without saying more about the special schools may I take as my fourth and last illustration, the indications which I do not think can very well be disputed of friction between the Board of Education on the one hand and the local education authorities and the teaching profession on the other. It is, of course, a matter which the Minister will lament as much as anybody, but if one examines the history of the last three months, if one looks through the "Times Educational Supplement" I do not think it can he disputed that during the last few months there have been some very unfortunate and increasing indications of friction and of failure to agree as between the local education authorities—who have the administration of education in their hands, and who represent a very strong stimulus throughout the country of a strictly educational character—and the Board of Education, which ought to guide and promote educational progress. We can all see that the task of the Board of Education in responding to Treasury demands for reduction in public expenditure is very difficult, and the Board runs the risk of unpopularity whatever it may do. But I believe there is widespread and genuine alarm because the Board is suspected of using the present situation to obtain control over educational policy and, indeed, over local educational administration. That is not the real function of the Board of Education at all. Its main function is to initiate and Stimulate educational progress— of course within the bounds of reason, having regard to practical considerations. If it be true, as some of these recent actions rather suggest., that they have initiated retrograde proposals then that is a matter with which I will ask the Minister to deal when he comes to speak. One illustration is to be found in the enormous number of circulars
which appear to be issued by the Board of Education in their efforts to direct and control and sometimes to limit the operations of the local education authorities. Can my right hon. Friend tell me how many circulars have been issued to the different local education authorities of the country or the different branches of the Board of Education, within the last three months? I am sure the House will be surprised at the number. The Association of Education Committees which contributes from time to time very authoritative articles to the "Times Educational Supplement" has an article in the Supplement of 24th March in which it is stated:
 The Board do not seem to realise that the practice now in force of daily interference with the exercise by authority of discretion and initiative is causing feelings of disaffection and revolt which are doing great harm to the cause of education.
The article goes on to give an illustration with which I will not delay the House, and it concludes:
 It is only another of the examples, daily increasing in number, where Parliament has imposed upon local authorities a duty which the Board forbid them to discharge.
1.0 P.M.
Again I would ask the House to observe that the multiplication of such interferences does not in the end lead to economy in local administration. I have here an illustration from the East Biding of Yorkshire. A sub-committee of the East Yorks County Council issued a report in January last, in which it deals with various educational topics, and then continues in this way:
 The new system of Government Grants has brought into operation a larger measure of Government control, involving much harassing correspondence, the making of intricate returns, and the furnishing of information on all heads of expenditure. The introduction of the new scale of teachers' 'salaries created much work, and this will continue. The same remark applied to the working of the Teachers' Superannuation Act of 1918. Fader such conditions "—
says the County Council—
 the increase of seven in the Clerical Staff appears justified. The expenditure in salaries has risen from £1,433 to £4,234.
There you have an illustration of the way in which too constant an interference with the discretion and the initiative of the local education authorities, while it is designed, no doubt, in part to secure economies, actually results in increased
expenditure, at any rate in staff. In the same way, let me illustrate by another circular, the number of which is well-known to the right hon. Gentleman—No. 1238. It was to deal with what are called Maintenanoe Grants. As the House knows, if you have children who have been attending elementary schools and some of whom, may go on, for example, to higher elementary schools and continue their education after the age of 14, since these schools are few and far between it is necessary for children to go much greater distances than is necessary in going to the ordinary elementary school, and if a poor child is to take advantage of the higher elementary schools some small provision—it may take the form of a tram or railway fare—is necessary in order that the child may be maintained at that higher elementary school. By Circular 1238 the Board announced:
 In view of present financial circumstances, it has been necessary for the Board to reconsider the question of recognizing for purposes of grants expenditure by local educational authorities under Section 24 of the Education Act, 1918, and Section 11 of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act,:1907, upon maintenance allowances for children in attendance at public elementary schools. It has been decided "—
I hope the House will observe what an extreme measure this was—
 that the Board's recognition of such expenditure must now be confined to cases in which awards of maintenance allowance have already been definitely granted by the authority for individual children and the parents have been informed before the receipt of this circular by the authority.
That has produced, as you might have expected, a very considerable outcry, and I hasten to add that when it was challenged in the House last year the late Minister of Education withdrew that Circular and proceeded to announce conditions in much more modified terms. Is not that an illustration which goes to show that in the efforts which the officials of the Board of Education are constantly making to satisfy the very severe Treasury demands and restrictions the cause of education, it does seem to me, is only too likely to suffer.
Let me take in the same way an instance from the training colleges. The history of the training colleges, in outline, is, I understand, this. In the Act of 1901 it was found that the number of training colleges for teachers in this
country was much less than was necessary if we were to produce a sufficient supply of properly trained teachers. The result was that under that Act, and under the Act of 1906, I think, the local education authorities were encouraged themselves to take part in setting up training colleges for the training of teachers, and many of the local education authorities have done so. They were assisted in their capital expenditure from central funds, and they were assured that they would receive adequate assistance from the educational grant—the central funds—in the carrying on of their training colleges. So matters went on until two years ago, and then, in the Education Act of 1918, a section was introduced—if my information is right—which was introduced and carried without much explanation and without any real appreciation of what it involved. That section is now being used for the purpose of denying to training colleges which were set up by the local education authorities the grant which is still given to the denominational training colleges throughout- the country. Whereas on the one hand the training colleges set up by the local education authorities merely get the fifty per cent. grant, on the other hand the denominational colleges are getting the very much larger provision, and the result is that the local educational authorities who at the invitation of the Board of Education have expended large sums in setting up these training colleges and are responsible for carrying them on are finding themselves at present very seriously prejudiced in the financing of these colleges by the decision recently arrived at and announced by the Board of Education.
Those are all illustrations, as it seems to me, of the last head with which I wish to deal, namely, instances in which the desires and policy of the Local Education authorities entered into with knowledge of local circumstances and with a real desire to promote education are being thwarted by the different view which is taken at headquarters, with the result, without question, that there is very considerable; and sometimes very serious, friction between the authorities on the one hand and the Board of Education -on the -other. This is illustrated by the many cases in which important and powerful education authorities up and
down the country, after having their dispute with the Board of Education, get their way. For example, take Reading. It is only last month that the Education Committee of Reading won a victory against the Board of Education in defiance of a previous decision arrived at by the Board. The Board of Education in the previous September intimated that it was improbable that it would be able to recognise for the calculation of grants expenditure by the authority in the present financial year on the provision of meals for necessitous school children exceeding £750. Reading is, of course, a very progressive and very powerful body. They made representations as to the inadequacy of this amount, with the result that the decision has now been reached that the Board has stated that it is prepared to pay grants on an expenditure not exceeding £1,800 during the year ending 31st March last.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Edward Wood): Perhaps I may interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, as I think there is some misunderstanding. In this case—I am not acquainted with the exact case, but I think they are all alike—the £750 represented a first ration that was imposed, and it was explained to everybody at the time that there was a certain margin of money that was left over and deliberately kept in hand to see how it worked over the various authorities in the country, and that if there was spare money over, as there was for some authorities who had been severely rationed, their case would be met as far as possible.

Sir J. SIMON: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want to make a- false point, but is it really a right policy to say that the extent to which we are going to secure by a grant of public money that necessitous school children are fed when they are compelled to attend school is to depend on some rationing process, and is not to depend upon what is the true extent of the need?

Mr. J. JONES: Feed them on prison fare!

Sir J. SIMON: I do not want to use extreme language.

Mr. J. JONES: But I am going to.

Sir J. SIMON: There are two ways of looking at this question. I would agree entirely with anybody who said we must exercise caution and not allow our interest in education to lead us into foolish expenditure, but I cannot believe it is economical to be so penurious in expenditure on this branch of education where the feeding of the child is essential if any good is to be got from the education the child is going to receive. It may be that the right hon. Gentleman may have that same explanation in the case of another instance I propose to give—that of Bristol. The Board of Education told Bristol, if I understand rightly, that they would be unable to recognise expenditure exceeding £3,000 in that area. As a result of subsequent representations, or it may be as the result of working out the balance to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, it now appears that the Board of Education is prepared to pay a grant on amounts not exceeding £3,995, or an increase of nearly £1,000, on the provision for meals for school children. In any case, my point is that while I thoroughly recognise and sympathise with the difficulties of a department which is faced on the one hand with the demands of the Treasury and on the other hand with its natural desire to promote education, I cannot but think that a case is made out that the policy now being followed produces a maximum of friction, and be it remembered a friction not only with the local education authorities but with the teaching profession as well. It will not have escaped the notice of my right hon. Friend that next week, when there is the annual conference of Teachers, held this year, I think, at Brighton, the first place at the public sessions of that great conference has been marked down for the purpose of resolutions in which:
 The Conference strongly condemns this attack of the Board by administrative measures on the facilities for the education of the children of this country, and it declares that the restrictions placed on educational progress are a serious menace to the public welfare.
I will conclude by offering this reflection. Is not this the true position? What is needed is a conception of national education which realises that money spent on inefficient education is wasteful. That is the waste. The waste is to spend money on inefficient education, and the real alternative is an active pursuit of a wise educational policy as
the best form of economy. The youth of the country at all times is the greatest of our national assets, and after the losses of the War it is more than ever necessary to make the most of it. The Geddes Committee-—

Mr. J. JONES: The "Get-Us" Committee, you mean.

Sir J. SIMON: The Geddes Committee per formed a most useful public service in many directions, but it cannot be regarded as the final authority as to the educational needs of the nation. I was very much struck with a leading article in the "Times Educational Supplement" of 13th January last in which this passage occurred:
 The Board of Education stands upon an entirely different footing from any other Department of State. It is not merely an administrative department created to guide and co-ordinate the administrative work of local departments of the same nature. The true: business of the Board is to watch over education and to be a perpetual source of policy, the mainspring of that policy being to secure a nation of men and women trained to think and act.
The same article goes on to point out that
 The Board has ceased in be a source of inspiration, a and has devoted itself very automatic superintendence thumb.
I should not like to sit down without saying that I gladly recognise, and in all quarters of the House there will be glad and full recognition of the fact that in some directions the Board of Education has served the cause of education in the last few years splendidly and well. They have raised the school age; they have introduced their policy of no leaving certificates; they have abolished half-time. It is a great thing to have developed physical education. It is a great thing and a great pride to the Board of Education to have set firmly on foot its system of medical inspection, and I hope they will be able to carry that further; but at the same time the underlying purposes of the Act of 1919 are very largely forgotten. It stirred for a time a feeling throughout the whole of the country in favour of education such as has not been felt south of the boundary between England and Scotland for many years. It was a response to the demand that England should be placed on terms of educational equality with its Continental competitors and its competitors in the new world,
and I do not think, on a fair view of what is now happening, that it can be disputed that there is delay and retardation in pursuing that great ideal.
When you are dealing with the education of the youth of the country delay and retardation can never be made good. If this was a debate on the administration of the Navy then it might quite fairly be said that even though there had been failure to provide capital ships exactly as and when they should be provided, yet there was an opportunity of making up the leeway by increasing the output in subsequent years. If this was a debate on military provision, it would be quite true to say that even though there might have been failure to fill up the cadres of some unit or regiment, that could be made up by an increased effort in calling men to the colours later on. If it were a debate on finance, it would be true to say that even if we postponed our financial obligations or failed to raise money, there is an opportunity for repentance and change in some subsequent year. But when you are dealing with the subject of the education of the boys and girls of the country, once an opportunity has passed, it can never be possible afterwards to make good the contraction of educational facilities which ought to be offered to a generation of children. Shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy, and we are failing to provide for the youth of the nation, on passing out into the world, that which is the best source of national strength and national progress, namely, the education which those who are devoted to the subject inside the Board of Education as well as outside it would gladly give. I have not forgotten that, when the House resumes after Easter, there will be a debate on the Education Estimates, but the topics which I have raised are topics which I hope the House will think it well to have raised in advance of that Debate. These are some at any rate of the lines on which the country feels very keenly, and we look to the Ministry of Education to-day and in the debate when we resume to give us an explanation and I hope to give us satisfaction on these matters which so deeply affect us.

Mr. EDE: I am sure the House will extend to me its indulgence when I rise to address it for the first time especially when I have to follow one who has for so many years charmed its ear.
I am entirely a product of the public school system of this country. I first went to an elementary school and, owing to the sacrifices made for me by my parents and from the assistance granted from public funds, I was able to reach one of the old universities of the land, and therefore I can claim a more or less personal experience of each branch of the educational system of this country that is financed from public funds. I desire to raise three or four points very briefly for the consideration of the Minister in charge of education. First, I desire to draw the attention of the House to the serious issues now being raised from the failure of this Government and its predecessor to deal with the growing difficulty of housing the schools satisfactorily. I wish to give the House an example which I think is one of the most glaring. The school I first attended was a very old building then. Exactly when it was built nobody knows, but it first emerges into the light of history when it was used as a stable in which the famous racehorse "Eclipse" was stabled in 1780. About 50 years later it was no use for stabling bloodstock and so it was converted into an elementary school for educating the children of the poor in the principles of the Established Church. About eight years ago, the operation of the Act of 1902 was such that the Epsom Grand Stand Association no longer felt it necessary to subscribe to a school for inculcating these doctrines. Therefore one of my first acts as a, manager of that school was to hand it over to the county council. The local urban council has petitioned that this school should he replaced. The Surrey county council is also desirous of replacing it. It has purchased a site, and I do think that this is one of the instances in which the Board of Education should see that the children of this generation are taught in a building better than a disused stable.
It is not only in regard to elementary education that this trouble with respect to buildings arises. One of the most gratifying features of what happened in education during the War was the tremendous increase in the demand for secondary education. In 1914, on the outbreak of war, the Secondary Schools of Surrey accommodated 3,056 pupils. On the day of the Armistice they accom
modated 5,036. There is a school on the southern side of my constituency, the Wallington County School for Girls, which had in 1914 157 pupils. It now has 421. This school is working under conditions that make it. exceedingly difficult for real secondary education to be given at all. The main building is a discarded Elementary School which accommodates 150 girls. Then there is a temporary wooden hut, which is too hot in summer and too cold in winter, which accommodates 124. There are two dwelling houses which have been adapted where the passages are very narrow and where the staircases are narrow and of wood. These rooms, although small, are made to accommodate 120 girls. We have a chapel schoolroom adjoining and that accommodates 27. We have no room in the school where more than half the girls can assemble at any one time, and the strain on the health of the staff and the difficulties of conducting and organising any corporate spirit in a school of that kind must be apparent to the House. The Surrey County Council, which is by no means an extravagant body, has purchased a site, and so keen are the girls attending the school that they have spontaneously subscribed towards laying out a sports ground for the use of that school. I appeal to the Minister for Education that it is time these and other urgent cases should receive his attention and he should be prepared to fight the Treasury on behalf of the Local Authorities who are willing to put this work in hand.
I desire to deal with the point which was somewhat touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon). That is the question of the restriction of opportunity for secondary education. I dissociate myself most emphatically from the simile he employed, a greatly overworked and false simile, that of the ladder of education.

Sir J. SIMON: I did not use the simile. I was not referring to it in the sense in which the hon. Gentleman refers to it.

Mr. EDE: I quite accept that. I would undertake to race anyone up the ladder of education if I could get my foot on it first. The secondary system of education suffers because we think of it in terms of the ladder. The present system of admission to secondary schools is merely placing a premium on precocity, and I suggest
that precocity is not a thing to be unnecessarily encouraged. I desire to see the secondary schools so thrown open that the child of slowly-ripening intellect, the child who has suffered some loss of elementary school opportunity and some slight or continuous ill-health during earlier years, may get an equal opportunity. The scholarship system at present in vogue is an attempt to skim off the cream from the elementary schools, but I am afraid in too many instances, instead of the cream, we merely get the froth. This regulation which the right hon. Member for Spen Valley so criticised, limiting the number of free places in future to 25 per cent., is one that should be speedily withdrawn. The first place it was attempted on was Mitcham. The Mitcham County School for boys that was opened last year was the first school to which this order was applied. As showing that the whole country is not being frightened into a fit of indiscriminate economy, when, during the recent Election there, I went to a meeting of the women workers in the poorest ward of the parish of Mitcham, and asked what they would like me to deal with in the ensuing public meeting in that part of the constituency, they said they desired to know why the opportunities for their children in that secondary school were so limited.
At the present time a. school in one part of the county can only admit more than the 25 per cent. if the children in another part of the county are deprived of education. There is that saving Clause in the Regulations, that the Board will take into consideration what the authority is doing in another part of the area, but I do not think it is a very great satisfaction to any governor of a secondary school to feel that he is keeping out children from another school by getting them into his. The Epsom County School for Girls, of whose governors I am chairman, last year had the privilege of awarding three free places, and we instructed the head mistress that she was to make the fee-paying entrants take exactly the same examination as the free places. We thought it was only right that we should know how the various classes of entrants compared for ability and aptitude. There were 41 candidates, of whom three were fee payers. We could only give three free places. The first fee payer came out No. 8, the second came out No. 14, and the
third came out No. 35. Those three fee payers were all admitted to the school, and I am pleased to say they are all doing well, but, as the right hon. Gentleman will see, there are 29 other children, who passed higher than the lowest fee payer, who have lost their chance of secondary education and who are presumably a better investment for the country's money than the lowest fee payer who managed to get in. The right hon. Gentleman who preceded me quite rightly pointed out that even the fee payer only pays a very small proportion of the cost of this education. In Surrey the cost is about £30 a year. The parents pay £12, and public funds, the county and the nation together, provide £18 between them, and I think it would be far better for the State to say that it will pay the whole of the £30 and admit the children on their aptitudes rather than to give to some children a passport to secondary education because their parents can raise the fees, while excluding better children who are unable to find the money through their parents.
There is one other point that I wish to raise, and that is the question that was slightly touched on by the right hon. Member for Spen Valley, the question of the dilution of the staffs of the elementary schools, and I want to join his protest, and, if I may, to emphasise it, against selecting the infant schools of the country for this experiment. The infant school is, after all, the most important part, because if you put a child in the hands of an unskilful, untrained and under-qualified teacher in an infant school, you may quite easily give it a distaste for education that it will never afterwards lose. I recall my own experience during a singing lesson, being called upon, when I was about four years of age, to sing a solo, and I did it, I believe, very badly indeed.

Mr. J. JONES: You are singing well to-day, anyhow.

Mr. EDE: The teacher, an under-qualified, supplementary teacher, that is, a young lady over 18 years of age who has been vaccinated, hearing a crow outside, remarked that the crow's performance was better than mine, and from that moment I have lost all interest in singing. But I suggest to the House that the infant school, from that point of view, is really the most essential part of a sound educational system. There you have to in-
terest the child in education. As it goes on, the child who has some aptitude begins to interest itself, but to place in an infant school a diluted staff is to strike a blow at the efficiency of the whole system that it will take many years to repair.
I desire, lastly, to deal with the question of the relation of the Board with the local authorities. The Surrey County Council, of which I am a member, received about 12 months ago a gift from the gentleman who is now its Chairman, who desired to mark nine years' association with the Education Committee by presenting to us one of the disused forts on the Hog's Back as a place where the children of the county could be taken for a fortnight's open air study during term time, and the Board, although we had this gift, refused, and still refuses, to recognise any expenditure on it for grant, and at first said it would refuse to recognise the attendance of the children there as attendance within the meaning of the Education Acts, so that if we had under those circumstances, accepted the gift of our Chairman, we should have been compelled to prosecute the parents of the children who accepted our invitation to attend there. The expenditure was small—only about £157 for the whole year —but it was an educational experiment of the greatest value. The very psychology of the place, taking a building that was built for destruction and turning it to one of the most useful occupations to which it could possibly be put, was in itself a great method of education for the children, and I hope that this year where local authorities are desirous of carrying out such experiments as that, the President of the Board will see his way to recognise them and to give them that measure of assistance that the Education Acts imply that they should receive.
I am well aware that the only answer that can possibly be given to the pleas put forward from these benches is that the nation is too poor at the present time to afford to give the children these opportunities that the Education Act of 1918 said should be theirs, but I want to point out that this morning I had an answer from the Under-Secretary of State for War that there are nine officers who daily use the Guards' mess, and for that mess Army Order 95 of this year says there
shall be a special mess allowance of £2,500 a year. Last year the figure was £4,000 a year, but I suggest that, if we can afford to spend £50 a week on providing a special mess allowance for the Guards' mess, we ought to be able to provide some money for dealing with the necessitous school children and the sons of the men who fought, we will say, in the East Surreys. I urge on this House that, although we may be poor, the real measure of our poverty is not the size of the National Debt, but is the fact that we lost during those four years of war a million of the bravest and noblest and the best that this country could produce. The money we can replace; those lives have gone, and whereas pestilence and famine take the aged, the infirm, and the weak, war took our noblest, our best, our most alert, and those children who are in our schools to-day have not merely to shoulder the ordinary burdens of British citizens, but they have to shoulder the burdens that will come to them from a generation that has been depleted by the loss of these million men. This generation, which has to shoulder its personal responsibility for what took place during that War, is only doing its duty to these children if it gives them the fullest possible opportunities for bringing to the task that confronts them an alert intelligence and a sturdy frame. John Milton said:
 War has made many great whom peace made small. If after being released from the toils of war, you neglect the arts of peace, if your peace and your liberty he a state of warfare, if war be your only virtue, the summit of your praise, you will believe me, soon find peace the most adverse to your interests. Your peace will be only a more distressing war; and that which you imagined liberty will prove the worse of slavery. Unless…you clear the horizon of the mind, you will always have those who will bend your necks to the yoke as if you were brutes, who, notwithstanding all your triumphs, will put you up to the highest bidder, as if you were mere booty made in war; and will find an exuberant source of wealth in your ignorance and superstition…Unless you are victors in this service, it is in vain that you have been victorious over the despotic enemy in the field.

Sir HENRY CRAIK: I hope that I may be allowed, with all respect. most heartily and sincerely to congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Ede) on the speech which he has just delivered. As one who has spent a lifetime in education, I listened to that speech with the greatest interest.
His experience is wide, and although the results of that experience do not in all respects agree with my own, yet I feel that he has earned by that experience a right to speak with authority. I recognise also in his, speech a power of graphic and humorous reminiscence, and, if I may, I will condole with him on those ambitions of vocal celebrity, which were so roughly broken by the harsh criticism of that unfortunate schoolmistress. I turn to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J.. Simon), who told us he was aware that next week there would he an opportunity for the discussion of educational questions, but who, nevertheless, at portentous length and, I must say, not always with the avoidance of some rather commonplace sentiments on the subject of education, opened the whole question at this juncture. I could not help feeling that in the great oration of the right hon. and. learned Gentleman there was something of an appeal to the electors and that there were thoughts of that meeting which is to take place next week to which he referred.
The right hon. Gentleman assumes, like many of those who speak in the same sense, a sort of monopoly of earnest devotion to the cause of education. I assure him that in merely pleading for and defending extravagance, or complaining of certain efforts in the direction of economy in administration of education, he is not always doing the best work for education itself. I shall not, like the right hon. Gentleman, survey the whole range of education administration, but I would like to touch very shortly on one or two points which the right hon. Gentleman raised. He said that one proof of the decadence of education by means of this economy was the enlarging of the size of classes are hon. Members quite certain of their ground? If they are acquainted with schools, they will surely know that it is sometimes not: at all a bad thing to collect a very considerable number of pupils together in a class room at a time to be all taught together. It arouses their interest and their keenness. [Interruption.] Will hon. Members take my experience as well as that of the hon. Member for Mitcham? My own experience, when I was a boy of fourteen, in the University of Glasgow was to attend classes of 150.
No classes in the whole of my long experience were more stimulating and more rousing than those classes. We had to do our best to distinguish ourselves, we had the rivalry of one another, and it was like fighting our way through a very hard fight, but we were tremendously stimulated as the result. Do not think that you are doing a very great thing if only you cut down classes always to little handsful of children, who get tired of looking at one another's faces, and know each other's character and disposition by heart. Children in large classes are not perhaps always the worst for it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman took up another subject, and that was restriction on the number of free places in secondary schools. Is my right hon. and learned Friend fully persuaded that you can always benefit every boy by driving him into what is called the higher education of secondary schools? You are wasting a far more valuable thing than your money if you take boys who are unfit for secondary education. There is nothing derogatory in saying that they are not suited for prolonged school education; they may be fitted for striking out ways of life for themselves elsewhere than in school. But you are spending what is far more valuable than your money if you are taking the best years of the lives of these boys which they may want to spend in active and energetic pursuits of their own, and shutting them up for bookwork. which they do not want. Really it is an extraordinary thing that a pedant like myself, a university man trained in education all my life, should have to try to tell hon. Members opposite who say they are better than university men that there is something worth doing and some stimulus worth having outside schools and universities.

Mr. J. JONES: There are university men here.

Sir H. CRAIK: I know that, and they may have equal knowledge of universities with myself, but they have a far greater knowledge of the outside world than I have.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman also thought that a great evil was being done in somewhat restricting the feeding of children. I am old enough in this House to remember all the fights for the feeding of children by the education
authority. I think my right hon. and learned Friend was present in the House during these discussions. Does he remember the attitude of all the local education authorities in Scotland to that question? They were one and all opposed to it, and thought that the feeding of children should belong to the duties of the poor law authorities and not of the education authorities. I will mention one lady, Miss Louise Stevenson, a prominent member. There was a lady member of the Edinburgh School Board who was strongly opposed to this, and strongly sympathised with those of us who fought against the extension of this feeding of children, and the handing over to the School Boards of the functions of the poor law authorities as regards the feeding of the child. I foretold at the time the relief was given that overlapping and trouble would arise, and it has come true. If your poor law authorities are not doing their duty; if they are not sufficiently liberal in feeding their children, why not change them? Why give over their work to other people?
Another point raised was with regard to interference with the extravagance of local authorities. I think of the right hon. and learned Gentleman knew as much as I did about that extravagance, he would think some check might be placed upon it. Within the last 40 or 50 years the whole management of schools has changed. In former days it was by no means bad management, and I know that because I at the central department had to deal with it. It was very fine, very intelligent management, and it cost the nation absolutely not a penny. It was entirely voluntary work. What is it now? We are spending millions a year on local administration, and yet we are not by one penny reducing the expenditure of the central authority. We have handed over a great deal of the administration from the Central Department to the local authorities. The moment you hand over a new bit of administration, the local authority adds perhaps three or four clerks, and certainly one or two superior supervising officers. These supervising officers go about to a great extent interfering with the teachers, trying to tell the teachers how to carry on their own profession, which they know very much better than these directors of education.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman also mentioned the training colleges in the hands of local authorities. I have always thought myself that the placing of the training of teachers in the hands of local authorities, whose business was not the training of teachers but the providing of schools and the educating of children, was a mistake. I would go further. I would rather have a curtailment of these training colleges for teachers, and send the teachers to get their education at the ordinary places of education, along with their fellow-men. It would, I think, greatly benefit the education of the country, and greatly benefit the profession of teachers. It is no good catching boys when they are 13 or 14 years of age, pouring money out on their training, giving them scholarships, fostering them like hothouse plants, and then training them in a little group of men whose all interests and their very fashion of thinking are formed in one mould. Do you think that makes good teachers? Far better to get rid of your training colleges; let your teachers go and find their training in the ordinary way, and then bring back the results of that wider training and let them do their best by their own independent means to attain the high positions of their profession. Of course they must get a certain technical training in the art and profession of teaching. But I do not attach too much importance to these things. I think if hon. Members will look back upon their youth, as I do, they will find that their most efficacious teacher was not always the best trained teacher, the most methodical, the most conventional in his method, but the man who could inspire you with some element of originality, who had a character of his own, and whose oddities even, sometimes made an impression upon you that lasted with you the whole of your life. Do not think you can get advanced education merely by spending lavish sums of money and by establishing separate training colleges and training all your teachers in a close compartment.
I am as keen as my right hon. and learned Friend on education and I was working at it, I think, before he was born. In former days you had a great ally in education, and a great fulcrum in education in the enthusiasm of the parent, and of the country, and that did prevail at least in my own country of
Scotland. All your systems of compulsion, all your Acts of Parliament, all your rules and regulations, all your forcing people to follow a particular course, and, above all, if you give the impression to people that they are being asked to spend too much money on education, that efficiency in education is identified with extravagant expenditure, let me tell you by all these things that you will inevitably kill that enthusiasm. If you do anything to foster that extravagance, you are not the true friends of education, but you are doing it an indelible injury. Appeal to the enthusiasm, the ambition, the effort, and the faith of your fellow-countrymen, but do not make them think that this vast expenditure upon educational administration, that the mere building of fine palatial schools, that the mere curtailing of the numbers in classes, that the mere spending of money in technically training your teachers will really build up the missionary impulse of a great educational movement in the country. Be saving, be careful, be economical; you will not be Less efficient.

Mr. JOHN MURRAY: I hope I shall profit by the warning given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) not to wander over the whole, field of education, but rather to confine myself at this late stage of the Debate to certain things which, in my opinion, are important. One has already been mentioned, namely, the situation of the training colleges; and. I venture again to mention that because I have the honour to represent a division of the City of Leeds, and Leeds of all the cities under educational authorities in the country, has the biggest grievance against the Government in this matter. The grievance arises from this. Led on by the temptations offered by the Government in 1906, Leeds has indulged in building the biggest training college, and in undertaking the heaviest financial burden on that account. For the years 1917–18–19, the charge upon the rates in Leeds amounted to an average of £4,000. For the three succeeding years, 1920–21–22, that charge grew at a bound to £23,000, and over these three years Leeds has been subjected to an unjust burden of practically £57,000. In 1922, it amounted to a rate of 2½d. The injustice to Leeds lies particularly in this,
that in the years since the training college was established, the percentage of Leeds trainees has ranged between five and 15. That is to say, the City of Leeds is paying £1,000 for every man or woman of its own in this college. The City of Leeds, like all other cities burdened in this way, realises the difficulty of the Board of Education, but feels that those difficulties and the negotiations in this matter have gone on too long, and hopes that the President and the Board will be able to produce a scheme quite soon to let them out of their present difficulty. The other matter about which I wish to speak is also a grievance, and in my opinion a bitter and heavy grievance. It is not the grievance of a powerful educational authority, or of any public body, but the grievance of individuals, and they are not very numerous—and certainly weak. I refer to certain grievances which have been within the last few weeks, so far as I know, placed on women teachers, who, when the war came volunteered for war service, obtained the leave of their authorities to go to war service, and came back from the War, took up their old educational work anew either under their old authorities or new authorities. They were given to understand that their years of war service would count under the old scheme for increments of salary, and would also count towards their pensions. In some cases increments have been given upon that basis. Now, however, by the action of the Board, instigated perhaps by the Treasury, a rule has been made whereby although the men who rendered war service have got the years of their war service counted for pensions purposes and for the purposes of increments of salary, the women who did the same, who are few in numbers, and the weaker sex, have had that privilege, or rather the right, withdrawn from them.
I should like to give the House a particular case. A lady was employed under the Scarborough Authority as a teacher of domestic subjects. In 1915 she left, with the leave of that authority, to take up war service. She spent four and a half years in it and rose to be the chief controller of a works. She came back to educational work, and has been employed by the London County Council for two years. She has had two annual increments of salary given on the basis of
recognizing her years of war service for salary purposes. Within the last few days she has been warned that, owing to the action of the Board of Education, these increments will be withdrawn. She will be seriously reduced in salary, and she is led to understand that the same prejudice against women who went to the War is operating in depriving her of the benefit of her years of war service towards her pension. These were the points I desired to address to the House: the one being the question of the Leeds Training College and the other being the attempt to differentiate between the men and the women who equally went to do war service now that they have come back, now long after the event, both in respect to increments of their salaries, and in respect, to the date on which they will become entitled to pension rights. The, second is an incredible meanness and a. perfectly savage financial economy that ought never to have been applied in any educational matter whatever.

Mr. GERALD HURST: I desire to draw the attention of the House to two definite defects in the Board's policy towards the rate-aided secondary schools. There is a very great shortage in the accommodation at these schools. The demand for accommodation has been growing from year to year, and at the present time the supply is utterly inadequate. The first defect to which I wish to draw attention is the way in which the children are selected for admission to these rate-aided secondary schools. The present method was described by a head mistress to me as consisting of a large centralised examination for thousands of children. This examination takes place when the children are 11 years of age. The result is that in the opinion of the most expert head mistresses and masters you do not get the right type of children into these rate-aided secondary schools. Of course, a certain number of the right type do get in under the system, but the effect of the centralised examination is to enable a large number of children who develop precociously and who are relatively advanced in knowledge at the age of 11 to obtain the privilege of getting into the secondary schools, while a very large number of those who in the long run are more qualified for secondary education are denied the advantage altogether.
The second result of this centralised examination is that it plays into the hands of those schools who cram children for this preliminary examination, whereas those preparatory departments and schools which develop distinct and individualistic methods of their own—the type to which my right hon. Friend (Sir H. Crain) referred to as the ideal kind of education—are unable to get their scholars into these free places in the secondary schools because, they have not given the machine-made education and the machine-made preparation for the examination. The ideal thing is to trust your head masters and your head mistresses; to give them some power of selection of the children who are admitted to these free places. A great many of these rate-aided secondary schools have built, up great traditions for themselves. There are cases where mothers have been at the school and desire that their daughters should follow them, and there are cases where the elder sisters wish their younger sisters to follow in their footsteps; but waiting lists are impossible in these schools at the present time. The head mistress of one of these told me that it was a heart-breaking business to refuse admission to the children of former scholars, and to younger sisters, because there was no room owing to the shortage of places. This examination to which I have referred makes impossible now free selection on the part of head mistresses.
The Board of Education, I suggest, should see that something is done to remedy these defects. It would be a great thing for head masters and head mistresses—I am speaking more particularly of the head mistresses, because I happen to know some of these heads of girls' secondary rate-aided schools, and one of the principal schools in the North of England happens to be in my division—and I am told there that what I have described is a very great handicap, and that if the head mistress had some powers of selection in the case, of certain of the girls it would he a very great advantage. I think the Board of Education might very well consider, too, the case of scholars whose parents are well off, whether it would not be as well for these children to take honorary scholarships? That is to say, we ought to encourage parents who are well able to pay the fees to accept for their children the status of scholars, but to waive free
education. There is no doubt about it that a great many parents in our great towns who at the present time enjoy the benefit. of free education for their children are well able to pay the fees. There are 25 per cent. of free places in rate-aided secondary schools and a much bigger percentage of free places in the normal secondary municipal schools of our great towns. If the parent who can afford to pay fees paid them, there would be a larger income for the purposes of this education and more, accommodation in the secondary schools; this great difficulty of having such large classes would also be met if, I say, there was more revenue from fees.
The second point to which I wish to call attention with regard to the schools is what has been described as the increasing stringency of the regulations of the Board of Education. There are something like 1,300 persons employed by the Board of Education in the work of regulating, inspecting, and supervising education. While these persons have all the virtues of bureaucrats they have also all the vices. Some of those, who have spent their whole lives in first-hand contact with the children in our schools and in regulating the curriculum and the life and occupation of the children from the time they enter the school till they leave, have to do what they know to be wrong in regard to there children. That comes about in this way: The Board of Education lay down regulations as to how many hours per week have to be spent in the study of special subjects by the children of particular ages; That policy no doubt is very good as to its general lines, but regulations of that sort being hard and fast prevent the teacher exercising that function for which the teacher is particularly fitted or should be particularly fitted, namely, the power of finding out what is most useful for the child to do, what subjects the child should specialise in and what other subjects the child should leave alone. It must be an advantage to give this power of selection and determining the curriculum for the children to those competent persons who as head masters and head mistresses have most to do with their up-bringing. T cannot believe at all in a system which fixes education in this way for the whole of the country, without referring to the individual capacities and aptitudes of the
boys and girls, and without referring to the particular standards in the particular neighbourhoods. I think it would he a far better thing to trust the experts on the spot, that is to say, the masters and mistresses rather than to place this tremendous power of regulating the work of every child in the country in the hands of a small group of bureaucrats working from Whitehall.
Everything in education depends upon spontancity. The progress that has been made in education has come from individual effort and individual initiative. You have only to think of the great educative agencies of our generation like the boy scouts and the girl guides to realise how little bureaucracy has really had to do with the main lines of advance pursued in the upbringing of the boys and girls in our day. I think the report of the Committee on the question of whether the same curriculum should be imposed on boys and girls in exactly the same way favours a distinction between the curriculum required for the boys and the curriculum required for the girls. This again illustrates the mistake of laying down hard-and-fast lines of curricula, in all eases and for all circumstances. The greater freedom you give to the individual head masters and head mistresses in the choice of subjects and in the decision as to what curriculum the boy and girl should pursue in his or her school, the better prospect for our country's education.
There is only one other point that I wish to make, a point which has nothing directly to do with the administration of the Board of Education. It is, however, perhaps worth putting. That is the idea that the Minister of Education might consider whether it would not be possible from time to time to advise the Prime Minister in making his recommendations for honours to consider the claims of some of the head masters and head mistresses of these great schools. I am told that in spite of the profuse and undiscriminating gift of honours and of awards of the various grades of O.B.E.s in recent years, those people who have spent most ungrudging and devoted lives in carrying on the work of-secondary education in our great towns, and have proved their value to the State by their great services as heads of big schools, have never had a place in any Honours List or at all events very
rarely. In this House we may not attach much value to these distinctions. We know too much the way in which the thing is arranged, and in which "British Empire" honours are awarded. But that is not the case in the country. The House knows that. Immense importance is attached in the localities to these various distinctions. There is no doubt about it that it does heighten the status of an individual in a town—in any unsophisticated town—to bear these trappings and insignia of distinction. I venture to think that there are very many cases where a recognition of this sort will do something to raise the status of the school teachers. That is a point which the Government might very well regard with favour as to those whose schools are very often the beacon lights of civilisation and education in our great towns. It would suggest the worth of their work and show the State's recognition of their many virtues.

Mr. AMMON: The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down made one suggestion with which I hardly agree. I do not think it would be wholly welcome to a large section of the teaching profession that showers of O.B.E.'s, and so on, should descend upon them. I cannot imagine, for instance, that the position of the headmaster of a great grammar school in Manchester would be in any way enhanced if any of these titles were conferred upon him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) does tempt one to follow him. He deplored the days which are gone by and which we hope will never again return; but, having regard to the limitations of time, and to the fact that this afternoon we are principally concerned with the question of administration, one must forego the temptation, though I am bound to say one always listens with a great deal of interest and pleasure to the right hon. Gentleman when he treats of his favourite subject. One is struck by the fact that education at the present moment is largely being spoiled and "spiked," to use a common term, not so much by the local education authorities as by the action of the Board of Education itself in relation to those authorities, and the pressure it is bringing to bear upon them. It would not be so bad if the action of
the Board were uniform, and if they did not adopt, if I may use the simile, the course of action with which a bully is often credited, namely, that when someone stands up to them they gave way and yield, while imposing their will upon those who take it a little more quietly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) has already mentioned how Reading and Bristol, on taking a certain line, have at any rate secured a larger grant than they otherwise would have secured if they had been as passive as some other authorities.
I have also a similar instance in connection with the East Ham Borough Council. They estimated for a sum of £4,500 for school meals, and the Board of Education informed them that they could not have more than £2,500. The East Ham Borough Council decided that they would take no notice of that. They wanted this money spent on the feeding of the children, and they spent it. They then fought the Board, and received no less than £4,177 as a result of their action. I do suggest that. it adds no dignity to the Board of Education, and does not inculcate confidence in the local education authorities, if they find that, after certain rules and suggestions have been made, then, when any local authority determines to fight them and puts up a sufficiently vigorous opposition, the Board of Education will "cave" in. One is glad to find that authorities do put up a resistance, and one only regrets that others do not do the same, and, perhaps, circumvent the action of the Board of Education in cutting clown facilities as they have been doing. A good deal has been said about the ladder of education, but we are not concerned about the ladder of education; we want a broad highway on which all sections and everyone capable of profiting by education shall have a chance to proceed to the highest university in the land. With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities, there are tens of thousands of people in the humble homes of these cities who would take advantage of it, and would only be too glad of the opportunity, while the real wealth of the nation would be greatly increased if they were able to do so.
I understand that some steps have been taken—perhaps the Minister will say presently whether I am correct in this—
with regard to certain manual training instructors who are likely to be very seriously hit by cuts in their salaries. For instance, one man whose case I had before me—and I could give many other instances—whose salary at the present time is £375, is, by the action of the Board of Education, cut down to £175. I would ask the House to consider exactly what that means. When a man has his salary cut down by more than one-half, it must mean an absolute revolution in his whole system of living, and is not at all conducive, I should imagine, to his giving the best of his services to the State or the municipality. Again, there are such mean things as stopping the grants for the supply of milk to necessitous children. I have a complaint from Battersea where children who were actually tubercular have been deprived of their milk owing to the grant not being forthcoming. I also desire to touch upon the action of the Board of Education in bringing pressure to bear in connection with the employment of unqualified teachers in the schools. That is more serious than it looks, for it is the first step towards cutting down the whole standard of the educational and teaching profession of this country. People talk about finding someone just to mind little children, but even that is not the easiest of jobs. Thousands of pounds have been spent during recent years in the study of the psychology of children, and in putting experts to be trained and to write treatises and so on, and then we take steps such as are now being taken under the direction or pressure of the Board of Education, with the result that, at the most formative periods of their lives, children are going to be deprived of the best possible training and education that they can have. If it is thought that there is no feeling on this outside, I would remind the House, not for the first time, that the by-election that brought me into this House was fought absolutely on that one plank, and a working-class constituency demonstrated what they felt by sending a representative to these Benches with an overwhelming majority. I hold in my hand a letter signed by a number of working women living in south-east London, in which they protest at what they feel is going to be a very grievous hurt to their little children by their being placed in the care of these unqualified people. It is written in the singular
though it has a number of signatures, and this one quotation from it will suffice:
 Having had a large family to bring up, I fully appreciate the difficulties in training one child at a time, and realise that only a qualified and trained person could deal with forty.
Unhappily, it is not forty just now, but is running up to 60 and 80, and it means that these little children simply are not going to have any proper foundation laid for their educational years. That is not the whole of the story, because, so far as education is concerned, the restriction and loss is irretrievable, for these children will not be able to pick it up in future life, and it means that the nation as a whole is going to lose tremendously in the next generation by their growing up without the chances of education that it was hoped they would have. Education is not a luxury, it is essential; and it is doubly essential at a time like this, when we are struggling to hold our own among the nations of the world.
The point to which I desire particularly to call attention is what I think is, perhaps, the meanest of all things of which the Board has been guilty, namely, the cutting down in connection with special schools. These schools were designed for the treatment and training of children who enter into life handicapped by some physical or mental deficiency. I raised with the right hon. Gentleman the other day the question of the increase in the number of blind children in school classes. Blind children are being educated and trained in certain occupations, and, surely, it is not necessary for anyone to demonstrate in this House that 15 blind children are as many as any one teacher can be expected to cope with and train. Every child needs individual care and individual attention. To increase the number of these terribly handicapped children in a class from 15 to 18 is, I venture to say, one of the meanest things that has ever been perpetrated by any Board of Education, and one will be interested to know what sort of defence can be out forward for it. This kind of thing occurs in other schools as well. The Geddes Report stated that. a saving could be effected in the special schools and the medical and social services, and then this Circular 1297 was issued, which calls for cutting clown in such schools to
a very large extent. Over the whole country there are no fewer than 26,000 of these children in our schools, 15,000 being mentally defective and 11,000 physically defective. About 11,000 of them are in London, and the whole financial saving will amount to £30,000, which is, at the most, 5 per cent. of the total expenditure. Is it worth while, for the sake of this paltry sum, to send these thousands of children into future life thus handicapped. to be a burden on the community and to lose all possible powers of moral, mental, and spiritual development, for that is what it really amounts to? It is worth noting that, of all the children who go out from these schools, 80 per cent. go out self-supporting and able to earn their living. If they are lumped into classes like this, merely to be kept quiet and out of the way during a certain number of years, without having proper, and specialised teaching, we are going to turn these thousands of children out in the near future to be a charge on future generations, a misery to themselves, and a tremendous loss in actual wealth to the community. I suggest that there can be no justification or warrant for any such thing as that. The President of the Board of Education the other day, in answering a question put by the hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. P. Morrison), attempted to defend this by saying that:
The aim of the Board, as stated in the first paragraph of that Circular,"—
that is to say, Circular 1297—
is to facilitate the production of such economies as, while not impairing the efficiency of the schools, will enable a larger number of children to be eventually provided for.
That is always the sort of defence that is set up whenever any attack is going to he made on the provision of educational or similar facilities for the public. It is simply a euphemistic way of saying that larger numbers of children are going to be crowded into these classes for fewer teachers to deal with, and they must of necessity suffer very considerably because of that deprivation. The children who are specially dealt with in these schools are blind, partially blind or myopic, deaf and partially deaf. mentally defective, physically defective and tubercular, and we are going to save a paltry £30,000 at their expense. Let me examine the matter a little more closely. In the
Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer I find the following statement:
There is no question of more truly serious importance for the future of special school work than the training of teachers. In London and the larger cities the main difficulty is solved by appointing none but certificated teachers…in any event the special school opens up new problems, educational and psychological, which a new teacher has at once to face.
In spite of that, it is now proposed to bring in partially trained teachers, teachers who have no proper qualification for dealing with this class of children, and it does not need an expert to point out how necessary it must be to have specially trained teachers to deal with children who are affected with blindness, who are deaf and dumb, or are suffering from any other deficiency. Then 15,000 mentally defectives. Mainly these children are not mentally defective in the sense that they are insane or bordering on insanity. Many are cases of slow development, and I could quote numerous instances of children who have been to these schools and by the specialised attention they have been able to receive they go out into the world as skilled artisans, and in some cases they have actually won scholarships and have done well in after life. But if they cannot get this special attention during these years of their lives when they are most severely handicapped they are going out into the world probably when they will be mentally defective in the real sense all their lives, and I do not imagine that there is anyone in the country who wants to save a paltry sum of money at such a cost, imposing as it will such a tremendous loss on the community as a whole.
Another point I should like to touch upon is concerned chiefly with the question of training colleges. In the old Board of Education days they were not allowed to have training colleges. The London County Council, to mention the authority of which I have most knowledge, have no fewer than five such colleges and we received until a short time ago no less than 75 per cent. towards the cost of sites and buildings and other expenses connected therewith. Under the recent administration of the Board of Education, following on the Act of 1918, whereby grants are only given in connection with those students in the county itself, a tremendous additional burden is being placed upon the local authorities,
with the result that they will be bound to reduce the facilities in the training colleges, which will shorten very largely the supply of teachers or will bring them from non-municipal colleges, which are more favourably treated in this respect. I only refer to it now in passing. An opportunity will be given to deal with it more fully when the Education Vote comes on. There is another point in connection with the Superannuation Act. The Board of Education issued a circular on 22nd September last and they invited local education authorities to make observations on the statements contained in it. Amongst, the local education authorities which replied was the London County Council, and they put forward certain cases pointing out that the retrospeetive action proposed by the Board of Education was going to adversely affect many schoolmasters and teachers who had not been teaching all their lives, and they asked that consideration should be given to their case. No reply has yet been received from the Board of Education. Surely we have a right to ask that important local authorities should he dealt with more expeditiously. These points I have put forward as the result of the administration of the Board of Education not so much bemuse of the local authorities themselves, but because the Board of Education had brought pressure to bear upon them, and has done everything it can to order them to reduce facilities for education. We are treating in a barbaric manner little children who are already entering into life with a serious handicap. These things should not be the work of the Board of Education. Rather they should be doing all they can to stimulate the local authorities to the utmost expenditure on education in order that we should be equipped later on to recover our position among the nations, which we are in danger of losing.

Mr. WOOD: rose—

Mr. MAXTON: On a point of Order. Am I to understand that the Debate on education is now closed?

Mr. SPEAKER: Not necessarily. The Minister is entitled to reply.

Mr. MAXTON: The point I wished to bring to your notice was that never during the whole course of the Debate
has one speaker been called on to deal with the Scottish side of education, which differs in essential respects from the English side.

Mr. SPEAKER: Another Minister replies for Scotland. I have had no notice that anyone wished to speak on Scottish education.

Mr. MAXTON: I and other Scottish Members have waited at some considerable inconvenience, because we understood that the Debate to-day was on the general question of education affecting the whole of Great Britain.

Mr. SPEAKER: Had the Hon. Member seen me, I could have disabused him of that idea. I have had no notice from any Scottish Member.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it not in order for any hon. Member on a Debate on the Adjournment of the House to raise any question of administration, without necessarily telling you, Sir, beforehand the subject to be raised?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not dispute that at all. I have to arrange the subjects desired by hon. Members as best I can.

Mr. D. M. COWAN: I gave in my name to-day as one desiring to speak because the questions raised to-day affect Scotland as much as England. All the economies practised in England, whether wise or foolish, have a repercussion in Scotland. We lose an equivalent amount for every penny that is taken off expenditure in England, and the reason for Scottish Members wishing to speak on an occasion like this is that if we do not express an opinion now, we might as well stay away from the Debate on Scottish Estimates so far as education is concerned, because there they have to do, not with any additional grants to be secured, but only with rationing out pro rata.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not a fact that the Opposition have chosen the Education Vote for the first Supply day after the Recess. Will there not be a whole day for hon. Members to debate these questions, and cannot they keep the subject alive, so as to have a second day if they require it?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter to which I have some regard, and there will be another opportunity shortly for raising
educational questions. It is my duty to distribute the time fairly among the different subjects which different Members desire to raise. There are several other subjects to be dealt with to-day.

Mr. MAXTON: The Estimates which will come on are again English Estimates, and I have already been informed that the Scottish Estimates will receive at the most only two days, so that we are being cut out of the general discussion on education, and we are being cut out of the Estimates also. I think it is grossly unfair.

Mr. SPEAKER: The arrangement of the Estimates does not lie in my hands.

Mr. MAXTON: To-day, I understand, is in your hands.

Mr. WOOD: I can assure hon. Members I have no wish to stand in their way, but I thought it might be for the convenience of the House that, as we have had a large number of points raised, and our attention has been directed over a very wide field, hon. Members were entitled, after nearly two and a half hours' Debate, to have some reply from this bench on the many matters to which my attention has been drawn. The right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, and who was courteous enough to give me notice of the main subjects on which he was going to address us, reminded us that this was the first occasion in the present Session on which this matter had been before the House. That is true, and I certainly make no complaint, indeed it has rather inspired a feeling of gratitude to him and his friends for having brought it before us. The Debate we have had, although it has necessarily been somewhat discursive in character, does not inaptly illustrate the difficulties that beset the path of anyone who is fortunate or unfortunate enough to be Minister of Education. We had, to begin with, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), who rose to great flights of eloquence towards the end of his speech, and urged us to believe that any measure of retardation of educational development was a loss that it was never possible to make good and the same view has been expressed by one or two other speakers. Then, on the other hand, we had my learned Friend the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik), who
was rather inclined to take the other view, and there is a considerable measure of support, not perhaps so much in the House as outside it, for the view that the large sums of money which are at present spent on education are, if not largely wasted, largely misapplied, not only because the holders of those views may disapprove of education, because gentlemen with these views now are rare, but because the main objective and the manner of reaching it are largely misconceived. Therefore, the task of a Minister of Education is to endeavour to steer his path as far as he can between those two sets of conflicting views.
Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if I tried to deal fairly directly with the various points which have been put to me. There is one which has attracted attention from almost every speaker who has attacked the Board in this Debate, and that is the question of the feeding of school children. The right hon. Gentleman approached the subject first and the hon. Member who spoke last addressed himself to it in terms which were very forcible and not, I think, entirely well informed. I think he can scarcely have been in the House when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley allowed me to interrupt him to inform him that the fact that the Board had been able to increase the ration which had been originally allotted to local authorities in connection with this service was not to be taken either as a proof of the Board's weakness or the Board's partiality, but that it was in pursuance of a policy which had been quite deliberately adopted. On the main question of the policy of imposing a ration on this service, I think the right hon. Gentleman was unconsciously something less than just. He appeared to think it was a very mistaken and unreasonable point of view to be prepared to contemplate poor underfed children remaining unfed and thereby being unable to profit by their school instruction. That is not the point of view from which the Board approached this question or from which I judge it. I, not less than he, should be concerned if. I was informed that school children, as a result of the Board of Education's attitude, were unfed. I do not think it is right that an undue burden because of this should be thrown on to the education rate, where it was never intended by
Parliament that it should be put, as against being borne where it ought to be borne, namely, by the general rate under the discretion of the guardians. I am concerned in this matter to endeavour to save all the money I can for the service of education, and to see that every service that ought properly to be borne elsewhere is borne elsewhere, rather than being thrown on the education rate.
The hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Ede) in the congratulations on whose speech I wish to be permitted to join, has made an interesting contribution to the Debate. Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to say that, however mixed may have been the feelings with which we heard of his arrival in this House, those feelings have been substantially modified by his speech. He spoke with a great measure of first-hand knowledge, and he interested those who heard him by his ingenious association of the spirit of horse racing with theology. He also drew our attention to the state of the bricks end mortar in the case of a great many schools. I have no doubt that in many cases they are very bad. The reasons are obvious. A great many necessary repairs were in arrear before the War, and during the War they went further and further into arrear, and since the War there has been the further difficulty of finance, affecting managers of voluntary schools and the local authorities. I think I can reassure my hon. Friend in some measure on that point. In spite of the difficulties of finance, in the last 18 months or two years the Board have been engaged in the task of encouraging those concerned to catch up with the arrears of repairs, wherever they have felt it possible and right to do so, and I can assure him and other hon. Members that as far as oar powers go we, shall continue to pursue that same course. Upon the other point that he raised, I am afraid that I have no direct information, but I will undertake that it shall be examined and explored. The hon. Member for West Leeds (Mr. J. Murray) raised a point which has been raised by other hon. Members at different times, namely, the fact that women teachers, by the issue of a Circular, are not allowed to rank their service during the War for the purpose of increment or pension. My hon. Friend appeared to be under the impres
sion that there was some particular injustice inflicted upon women as compared with men in regard to this matter. That is not so. When the whole question was considered, I think in 1919, by the Board, in conjunction with the Treasury, it obviously raised rather wide and far-reaching questions and, as the result of long deliberations, a decision was ultimately arrived at that the only war service that would count for this purpose was actual war service with the colours. That kind of service was only open for men. As a result of that decision, the service that men gave in munition works or in other forms of national service carries the same disability, if disability it be, as that to which my hon. Friend referred in the case of women.
I turn to the principal points to which the right hon. Member for Spen Valley addressed himself in opening the Debate. I will say one word of general introduction. Necessarily, minor economies are inevitably bound to he annoying. They are, as sometimes happens in private life, often regarded as being ridiculous. We all laugh at one another's private economies, which really achieve nothing, such as a man writing his letters on the half-sheets he tears off his dinner invitations, and things of that sort; but, however critical we are in regard to the economies of somebody else, if we search our conscience closely enough, we shall find that we have one economy of our own. The paint that I wish to make in general is that, however true that may be, the fact is that if particular economies stood alone they would elicit criticism on the ground that they are not worth making, but in the aggregate they amount to a very substantial sum. In so far as the economy is possible without loss of efficiency, it does release so much more money for the purpose of carrying on our system of education.
I do not at all quarrel with my right hon. Friend's definition of economy and efficiency towards the end of his speech. It is totally misleading to assume that expenditure is identical with efficiency. It is not less misleading to assume that Economy is identical with inefficiency. There is a line that lies between both. As I conceive the duty of the Board of Education in these days it is to endeavour to pursue economy, having regard to the general exigencies of the
public service, in such a way that the system of public education is not impaired, and that. when times become easier the original position can at once be resumed. It is inevitable that in these days we must be prepared to see a certain marking of time, a certain retardation of expansion, to use my right hon. Friend's phrase. However much we deplore it, it is not primarily damaging the efficiency of the system if we preserve for ourselves and the country the power and capacity to jump off again as soon as the opportunity comes.
A good deal of attention has been focussed on the question which arises as to the size of classes and the number of teachers. Speaking generally, I do not think that there is the least cause to be apprehensive with regard to that. In the last few months the Board of Education have been conducting an inquiry by means of their inspectors, and with the willing co-operation of the local education authorities, into the question of staffing all through the country. They have found that there were some authorities whose staffing was based on a rather extravagant scale, not necessarily by way of design to be more efficient than somebody else, but rather as the result of somewhat loose administration. They found other places where the staffing was below what seemed to be the requisite standard. The Board has applied a common remedy. Where the standard has been too low we have encouraged them to raise it, and where it has been too high we have encouraged them to reduce it. The result has been that, in the main, it has been the less well-qualified teachers where reductions have been made that have been displaced.
The result of the measures taken up to now is not without interest. I cannot give the House the exact figures now, but they will get them in a few days. Before the Education Estimates are taken, I intend to lay a rather comprehensive White Paper, giving many details and financial figures. In that White Paper hon. Members will see a very instructive and interesting table, which gives the average number of children per teacher over a term of years, and they will be astonished to find that in spite of the various economies that
have been made, we have not gone back to where we were just before the War, or in 1917. I hesitate to give the exact date. The reason of that is that, in spite of one of the most beneficient laws. to which my right hon. Friend referred, namely, the extension of the school age to the end of the term when a child is 14, there has been a marked reduction of child population owing to the fall in the birth-rate as a result of the War. I ask hon. Members to examine these figures with some care, because they will largely reassure them on that point.
I now come to a matter of great concern to a good many hon. Members, and that is the staffing of special schools. I want to tell the House quite frankly what my difficulty has been in regard to this matter. I fully recognise the force of everything that has been said from the opposite side on this question. Nobody with a heart could fail to share the sympathy that has been expressed with the children for whom these special schools are devised. Nobody could wish to see the service so reduced in value, with these inevitable reductions, that it fails in its object. The difficulty is that we do not know what are the numbers of these children who demand this special treatment all over the country. I do know that we are not making provision by any means for them all. The reason is because, as it has been conducted hitherto, the provision made has been so expensive that it has riot been extended up to the limit of the needs.
3.0 P.M.
The Board of Education are not the only people concerned in this matter. The local authorities are also concerned. During the short time I have been at the Board of Education I have had considerable evidence of the reluctance of local authorities, in these days of high rates, to increase this necessary provision at the existing high per capita rate. I have an example here from Ipswich. I need not trouble the House with it beyond saying that the statement sets out in the clearest possible terms that the local authority would like to add another school to develop the work, but as things are the cost per head is so great that they cannot afford to do so. The choice therefore which confronts anybody who has to deal with this question is, "Are you going to try to give the best possible education to a limited
number of the children who suffer from these disabilities, or are you going to give an education that, as I am advised, in the main essentials will not be prejudiced, to a much larger number of children and hope indeed to be able to cover the whole ground? "Anybody who takes the trouble to go into the figures will see the large number of mentally defective children or children with other disabilities who want special accommodation, who are filling places in our public elementary schools and doing no good to themselves, and probably doing considerable harm to the ordinary school education.
This leads me to a matter which concerns what is really a very large and fundamental question, the question, if I may use the phrase which has been adopted in debate, of friction between the Board and the local authorities. There again, I do not for a moment deny that the wheels of the administrative chariot of education obviously run much less smoothly when money is very tight than when money is fairly easy, and everybody is willing to see somebody else spend it. The result of that position has been to cause a considerable number of injunctions to be issued to the people who actually do the spending by the Board of Education, which is responsible to the other people who do a part of finding the money—the general body of taxpayers. But it is not quite as bad as the right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think. when he challenged me if I could say how many circulars have been issued during the last three months. I have made inquiries from those whose business it is to know such things, and I was rather apprehensive that it would work out to something like one per day. But the result is much more favourable. During the last three months only seven circulars have been issued, which I think is a very modest number considering the range over which educational administration moves.
But the main point to which I wish to direct. attention—I will not expand on it now, as I may have something to say about it afterwards—is that matters of this kind really raise a fundamental question as to the system under which you give your grants to local authorities on the 50 per cent. expenditure basis. I am not going to discuss that now, beyond saying that experience goes to support the view that though in fairly prosperous
financial times that expenditure basis is far more convenient and agreeable to all parties, and provides a satisfactory stimulus to educational development, yet when times change and finance becomes the great difficulty, it automatically brings in its train a much greater measure of control than is administratively desirable. That is obviously a grave objection. As the House knows, the whole question is now under the consideration of Lord Merton's Committee. I therefore do not enlarge upon it, as I may have something to say about it at a later date.
Now I wish to say something about the question of free places in secondary schools. I do not want to say a great deal about it beyond this. It is certainly true that during the last Government my predecessor felt himself compelled to make the actual provision of free places for the school year ended 31st July, 1922, for the time, the static allowance of free places. But in some quarters there seems to he a misunderstanding about this. The Board never reduced what was then the existing proportion of free places if the existing proportion was above 25 per cent.. Where it was above 25 per cent., the schools have been allowed to keep the benefit of that excess. All we have done is to prevent whatever was the position on the 31st July being enlarged, and that has been dictated inevitably by the financial necessities of the time.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: In spite of the increased demand.

Mr. WOOD: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that one of the ironies of the present difficult situation is that it should have been necessary to restrict the facilities for secondary education at a moment when, as he truly says, the demand for secondary education is very much intensified. But the point which I was about to bring out was this, that if there is a limitation of money at all it is necessary for the Board of Education to see that there is fair play and that the money is divided fairly between all local authorities. For instance, if one local authority in this country were to pursue a policy of completely free secondary education, and if another local authority were not so disposed—I have actual cases in my mind—the result of the policy of the local authority that pursued a free secondary education would be to attract to itself,
under our present system of grants, a much larger amount of grant than that available for the authority that was not pursuing such a policy. That may not matter where the money coming from the Exchequer is unlimited, but it does matter very much where the money is limited, because it obviously becomes a case of one authority trying to take too much out of a pint pot, and the pint pot only holding a certain amount. That is therefore where the Board comes in. When you have said all that, however, the fact remains—I want to leave this in the mind of the House—that since the War, as compared with before the War and now, the number of places in secondary schools on the grant list is almost exactly double, and that, in that mathematical change, the free placers have had their almost mathematically accurate share.
The only other thing about which I want to say something, is the question of training colleges.

Sir J. SIMON: In the White Paper, which the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to say he was going to publish, will it be possible to set out the figures to which he has just referred, and to show how the free places have, as a matter of fact, moved up proportionately?

Mr. WOOD: I am not sure whether they are in the White Paper, but I think I shall certainly be able to have them added, if the right hon. Gentleman so desires. With regard to training colleges, I do not want, at this moment, to say more than that I am, of course, alive to the representations that have been made from different quarters, and to the difficulties that the local authorities who run training colleges feel, I cannot admit what, I think, has been suggested more than once, that there has been a breach of faith in this matter with the local authorities on the part of the Government. I will not give my reasons, unless that statement is challenged, but I quite agree with the local authorities that if they could spread the burden over other local authorities who do not run training colleges it would be very desirable. I also agree with them that the present system, on which they are charging very high fees to outsiders, is educationally open to considerable objection. As I have said before, I am using every effort that I can to find some means to ease the
situation, and to afford a solution of what undoubtedly is a grave difficulty.
I have dealt with most of the points that have been made, except that, which has been pressed, about the iniquity of suggesting that young children under five or six should be taught by unqualified—using the word in a technical sense—teachers. I have been at a little pains to inform myself about this question. The result of my research is that the complaint, on the ground upon which it has been based this afternoon, namely, that the youngest children require the best teachers, is really not one that effectively stands examination and criticism. I do not think it is one that the teachers themselves have the right to advance, because, when they are in charge of their own school, and are given considerable liberty and discretion as to the allocation of the teachers to the particular classes in the school, and so on, they do not, in fact, allot their best teachers to the infants' department. I see an hon. Member opposite shakes his head, but I would not dream of making a statement like that unless I were quite sure of my ground. What I base myself on is this. We, in the Board of Education, recently took the trouble to obtain particulars of all the departments in the West Biding of Yorkshire and in Lancashire in which infants were taught.. In the West Riding, our examination was concerned with 653 departments out of 775 in the Riding. In those 653 departments, the lowest class was taken by a teacher of the lowest qualification serving in the department. In Lancashire, the figures are that, out of 644 departments, only in 78 are the lowest classes taught by trained certificated teachers. Therefore, the argument that the youngest children require the most highly-trained teacher is one that does not, on examination, appear to be supported, even by the teachers themselves who advance the argument most loudly.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Are your figures for the rural areas of the West Riding and Lancashire? Are they for the county areas, or do they include the boroughs and urban districts?

Mr. WOOD: I should imagine that they are for the whole of the West Riding, but I have not had an opportunity of checking them, as they have only been
supplied to me since the point was raised this afternoon. The fact of the matter is, that one of the results of finance, in conjunction with the overdue though considerable rise of teachers' salaries, has been to produce a position of some difficulty. I think, among the reforms which my right hon. Friend, who was at the Board before me, was successful in effecting, there was hardly one more valuable than that which secured the reconsideration of the salaries of school teachers. That was, on many grounds, important, and had, indeed, the result, on that occasion—as I think the right hon. Gentleman would be the first to recognise —of coinciding with the period, immediately afterwards, of financial difficulty. The existence of comparatively high scales has led over-pressed ratepayers to look in one of two directions to try to save money. One direction has been to reduce the quality of teachers, and the other has bees to reduce the quantity of teachers. My right hon. Friend, I have no doubt, when confronted with that situation—which was, in the main, of having regard to the facts I have laid. before the House —thought it desirable to meet it by giving a Little bit at the bottom, in order to retain and preserve the best services of the best teachers at the top. In that conclusion, I think, in spite of what has been urged to-day, he was, broadly, right.

Mr. AMMON: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question about superannuation? It was the last point I made. It was about the Order of the Board of Education in regard to retrospective action upon superannuation.

Mr. WOOD: At the moment I have no information which.enables me to say why that communication has not been dealt. with, but I am sure that there must be same adequate reason. I am not prepared to answer a technical question offhand without further consideration of the facts of the case. As we have been reminded, we shall have further opportunity of discusing these matters when the Estimates of the Board of Education are presented after the Recess. Meanwhile, I hope that hon. Members will think that I have endeavoured, not at undue length, to deal with the questions which have been raised.

RUSSIA.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The I Minister of Education has made the best
possible defence for his Department. I would like to raise one or two local grievances about education, but I regret very much that I cannot continue the discussion. I sympathise with hon. Members from Scotland who desire to discuss Scottish education—nothing could be move important—and I sympathise equally with their demand for Scottish Home Rule. I am about to take the opportunity of opening up another subject that has not been touched upon in this Parliament, so far as I am aware. We have had five or six discussions on the question of the Ruhr, but there is another side to the European situation, not unconnected with the position in the Ruhr, which is of great importance to this country. I wish to ask one or two questions of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as to the present policy of this country with regard to Russia. I have said that this question is not unconnected with the situation in Western Europe. That is the case. At the present time the position is that the Government of the French Republic is on better terms with the Russian Government than is our Government. There is a section of opinion in France, not unrepresented in high circles, which is to-day advocating a reformation of the old alliance between France and Russia. On the other hand, in Russia, and in Moscow especially, there is a section of opinion among those who are members of the Communist party, that looks towards France. Should that alliance conic about between France and Russia it is very probable that the Italian Government will join; in fact it is almost certain. In that case, while we take up our present attitude towards Germany, Germany will probably be forced in too, and we will find ourselves faced with a European bloc and will be forced into a position of isolation without the strength or the independence to support it that we enjoyed in Victorian days.
I maintain that this situation is extremely serious. The fact that people here have an antagonism against what is going on or may be going on or has been going on in Russia, the fact that very terrible deeds have been done in that country, should not blind us to the fact that the high interests of Great Britain demand that a clear, settled and sagacious policy should be pursued towards the Russian Republic. I regret
very much that the official Opposition has not taken a better opportunity than this to raise this vital question. I make no apology for raising it. It affects the constituency which I have the honour to represent. I do not pretend to a very great knowledge of the matter, in spite of the fact that I spent just one month within the borders of Russia and returned only a fortnight ago. But I did not waste my time while I was there, and I kept my eyes open. First of all, I shall refer to the threatened shooting of certain prelates in Russia, following their recent trial. That matter was being discussed in Russia when I was there, and I used some small endeavours to advise those with whom I came in contact that I thought two years after the deed of which these prelates are accused was too long a time for any severe measures to be taken, and that any execution would have a deplorable effect on public opinion throughout Europe. I was assured, not officially, of course, but on all hands, that there was no chance of capital punishment being inflicted. I hope that that is so.
I dare say the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs will give us any recent information he has on the subject. I would feel as horrified as anyone else at the execution of these elderly men, but at the same time we must not forget that we are talking about a country that has been through the most terrible turmoil, anarchy, war, civil war, and intervention, and that passions have been aroused that are not easily allayed. We should seek means for moderating opinion in that country, by supporting the moderates, who are getting powerful, and not playing into the hands of the extremists. We should also remember our own history in the matter. We should remember the number of ecclesiastics who were put to death by burning in the reign of the much-revered Queen Elizabeth and her sister Mary, and also that great hero of romantic history, their revered father, Henry VIII, who was as good at despoiling the churches as any Communist leader in Russia to-day. Russia is some generations behind us in civilisation, and has not to-day the advantage of constitutional government on our model.
I say that the present Government. in this country, while it has certainly in-
herited a very muddled state of foreign politics, has gone out of its way to pinprick and annoy the Russian Government and people in every possible manner. I will give a few examples. First of all, take the question of the position that arose in Turkey after the collapse of the Greek Army. I suppose that nobody but the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) could have reconciled the two hereditary enemies, Russia and Turkey, against us. The fall of the Greek Power in Asia Minor found the Russians and Turks bound together by an, alliance. It was most obvious to anyone who wished to serve his country without allowing sentiment and prejudice to stand in the way, that before we went into the Conference with Turkey it was absolutely necessary to come to some understanding with Russia. It was the common-sense point of view to take. Instead of that the British Government, through the Noble Lord who guides our foreign policy, purposely ignored Russia. If we had played our cards properly we should have had Russia on our side in dealing with Turkey. There is no country more vitally affected than Russia by the freedom of the Straits. We risked a great war; we alienated Russia and Russians of all sections of political opinion. Even people who are opposed to the present Russian Government feel that they have been insulted and affronted by the attempted isolation of Russia. It was a foolish, ridiculous policy and it will cost us dear. We risked a great and disastrous war and we are not yet relieved from danger in that quarter. We have not yet got a settlement with Turkey and if a settlement should break down the reason is to be found in our failure to come to an agreement with Russia on this and other questions. I do not care to speak of a matter of this sort, but I think it necessary to say that at the Lausanne Conference the Noble Lord the Marquess Curzon, so polite and courteous in his private life, seems to have gone out of his way—and I have had evidence of this from several sources and not from Russian sources at all—to purposely humiliate the Russian representatives there. It is most unfortunate that such a thing should have happened. I am sure it was unthinkingly done, but the fact is that the Noble Lord allowed his senti-
ments to make him forget, for once, his innate courtesy and politeness, and a personal atmosphere was created most unhelpful to the settlement of an admittedly difficult problem.
The third point to which I wish to draw attention is that, after the present Government assumed office, when M. Krassin, the head of the Russian trade delegation in this country—and, after all, the representative of the greatest country in Europe in point of numbers and size, and the second greatest in Asia —when M. Krassin wished to call on the Foreign Secretary or on the hon. Gentleman who represents him in this House, an interview was declined. Before this, M. Krassin had seen the Marquess Curzon on several occasions. The late Prime Minister had interviewed him on many occasions, as also had the late President of the Board of Trade, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Cabinet Ministers. This Government, however, refused to see him, which was a foolish, ridiculous and feminine attitude to adopt—the attitude of a woman who has been snubbed and who cannot get over it. He was, of course, given an audience by the gentleman who is an expert in this matter at the Foreign Office, but the point is that for the sake of avoiding five. minutes' conversation with the representative of a great people, we went out of our way to give this cause of offence. What has been the result? In Moscow the British Mission is headed by Mr. Hodgson, who, as I have seen from personal observation, is carrying out a most difficult and delicate task with efficiency and with, I think, on the whole, a good deal of success. He has a most difficult task, indeed, and I believe carries it out admirably, but; as a result of the attitude of our Government, to which I have referred, there has been a reprisal, and he is not now admitted to see the Foreign Minister of Russia or his deputy and is only received by comparatively:junior officials. I hope that state of affairs will be changed, and I hope he will be received by M. Tchitcherin with regard to such questions as the proposed execution of these ecclesiastics. At present, however, he cannot get to the fountain head at all. British merchants and business men, important British houses which are represented in Russia and doing business with Russia, in spite of the Government, find,
as a result, that such little attention and assistance as they can look for to our indeterminate mission is diminishing, and that is the only result of our very ill-advised treatment of the gentleman who is over here at the head of the Russian trade delegation.
I ask the Government for some statement of policy on this question. There are to-day two logical clear policies. One is to say that the Russians are perfectly hopeless, that there is no future for the present Russian Government, that there is no interest for British trade in Russia, and to tell the present Russian Trade Mission, after due notice, that the agreement is terminated and that they must clear out of London and that they will not be allowed back in any circumstances. That is the policy which certain Gentlemen on the back benches opposite have advocated. I do not agree with it, but at any rate it is logical. The other policy is to carry out the terms of the preamble of the original trade agreement and, after the present period of trial, to conclude a regular Treaty of peace. I am not going to press the present Government to recognise the Russian Government immediately, but I ask them at any rate to consider whether they cannot resume—I prefer to see them do it alone if other countries are doing it alone—the conversations interrupted at The Hague. Those conversations did not break down entirely, and I believe can be renewed with good possibility of success.
I wish to state the following facts about Russia. First, it is agreed by everyone in Russia of whatever political opinion that the present Government is absolutely firm. Lenin may die, Trotsky may die, all the other well-known leaders may die, but the Government will go on. Even the most bitter opponents of the Government are agreed on that, and I am sure the Under-Secretary is so advised by his experts in the Foreign Office. The only thing that could possibly upset the Government is foreign intervention on a large scale, which is outside practical politics. The next point is that there is in the large centers of populations—I only visited Petrograd and Moscow and several of the villages—but I spoke to people from Samara, Chita, Kharkoff and Odessa, and they all told me the same story—of com-
plete order and tranquillity. The system of government we may not like, but there is complete peace and safety. The third point is that Communism, as we are taught to regard it, has been abandoned in Russia, deliberately, admittedly and openly, for the new economic policy, and in that may be found the secret of the bringing to trial of the ecclesiastics. If I may digress for a moment, the fact of the matter is that in Russia there is a moderate party and an extremist party. In the Communist party, which governs Russia, there are moderates and extremists. The extremists fought hard against the abandonment of militant socialism and resisted the introduction of the new economic policy, but they have been overborne because the moderates were supported by the masses of people and the peasantry. Here is a political trial. It. is said that the Archbishops and priests helped the Poles against the Russians. I do not know what truth there is in that, if any, but it said: "This is a political question and not a question affecting the lives of the children of the country and the happiness of the people and we intend to have our own way here," and the result is the trials which have taken place. That is my reading of the situation, and it was a very lively topic of conversation when I was in Moscow a few weeks ago.
The new economic policy means really permission to accumulate private property and even private fortunes. It permits the banks to operate, it permits the Stock Exchange to operate and permits of trade intercourse between the towns and villages; it has succeeded fairly well and commercial activity is going on again in the cities and the country. There is enough warmth for the people in winter and everybody has clothes and boots and enough to eat. The people are poor, but the country is recovering. External trade is controlled and is likely to be controlled for some time, but it is possible to get permits to trade freely and certain companies and individuals and trusts—the semi-Government trusts operating in Russia—are trading externally quite freely with our people, including constituents of my own. Incidentally I may say that last year a ring was formed by the Scandinavian timber traders and it was broken by Rusian timber. To-clay we are getting
increased quantities of Russian timber into Hull, which has brought, the price down considerably. The timber has been excellent in quality, well above specification and has given great satisfaction, I understand, in Hull, where it can he got cheaper than Swedish or Finnish timber.
That is just the situation as briefly as I can put it. I have tried to paint some sort of picture, and I say it is time we took the necessary steps because at the present moment British business is to a certain degree hampered by the fact that there are no regular relations between the British and the Russian Governments. In Moscow you have the German Embassy with a very distinguished German diplomat as Ambassador. In this Embassy they have a German business man who speaks perfect Russian, and whose special function it is to chaperone all Germans who come to Russia on business or for other purposes, and conduct them to the different Government Departments where he says, "I come from the German Ambassador; this German citizen wishes for help or information," or whatever the case may be, and that man gets it. We cannot do that. The head of the British Mission in Moscow, to whom I wish to take the opportunity to give some praise, is not in a position to do that. We have not recognised the Russian Government. There are bad and not good relations between the two Governments, and in consequence our business people suffer. Furthermore, owing to this situation the position of the State Bank in Russia is indeterminate. Our merchants are being paid partly in Bills backed by the State Bank, and if some suitable arrangements could be come to between the two Governments that would put up the credit of the State Bank our merchants would be able to get these bills discounted at better rates, which would mean that we should get better value for our commodities. Those are just two examples of the present indeterminate position between the two Governments which are adversely affecting British trade.
Our Government say, of course, "The trouble is that the present Government in Russia engages in propaganda against us, and that they have not recognised debts and private property." As regards propaganda, the present Government in Russia denies that since the signing of
the trade agreement they have given money or assistance to people engaged in propaganda in this country. I have asked in this House for specific cases of this being discovered, and have never had an answer from the Government on that point. It is possible that the Third International does engage in propaganda, but there is as much connection between that and the present Government of Russia as there is between the Primrose League and the present Government in Westminster. From what I saw I should think that the Russian Government, which is fearfully short of money, which is going through a sort of Geddes period, and has had to cut down on education and other social services, has very little left for propaganda. They do complain of the very hostile speeches of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald), who, I am sorry to see, is not present, the Member for East Newcastle (Mr. A. Henderson), and other prominent Members, of the Labour party who, they say, are always attacking Russia. They say, "If the British Government complains of the Third International engaging in propaganda against them, why do they permit these Privy Councillors and men holding prominent positions to make these extremely bitter speeches and write these bitter articles against Russia?" I repeat that because it was put to me quite seriously by a very prominent Russian, Monsieur Kameneff, who is now Deputy Prime Minister and the most powerful person in Russia. It is a great pity that he was cleared out of this country with sin+ ignominy, although, as he is a man possessing a sense of humour, I do not suppose he bears us any grudge on that account.
They are prepared to discuss this question of propaganda on equal terms with us, and I dare say they could take steps to prevent the Third International engaging in propaganda in this country or in India. The Moderates in Russia recognise that more harm than good is being done by this propaganda, and the Noble Marquess, Lord Curzon, who represents the Foreign Office by his whole attitude plays right into and strengthens the hands of these extremists. Incidentally, the extremists have been gradually abandoning the idea of a world revolution, but they have again picked up hope at the French action in the Ruhr, which they think is so going to upset Europe that
there will be a chance for their long-looked-for world revolution after all. The Moderates who, as I have said, are in the ascendant, have given up the idea of a world revolution, or at least they think it is not coming in their time, and are prepared to work with us loyally for the mutual good of the two people.
On the question of debts, they have not refused to acknowledge their debts at all. That is absolutely false. They are prepared to acknowledge them in principle provided we are prepared to recognise them as the Government, and if we are prepared to give them some assistance as compensation for the immense damage that was done by our intervention and blockade after the Armistice. In return for a small credit they are quite prepared to recognise the debt in principle and after a moratorium to begin to pay interest and sinking fund, which, after all, is more than some of our Allies are prepared to do on the other side of the Channel. The fact. of the matter is that whether we like it or not the Russian Republic is there, the present Soviet régime is there, and it is not going to fall. Above all, the Russian people are there, a great people with great qualities, a people who towards the Englishman are particularly courteous and friendly for we have a great prestige still in Russia and Englishmen are personally popular, a most likeable people. You speak to a man whose father was a peasant but who himself is producing one of those great scenic spectacles which are unequalled anywhere outside Russia to-clay. The arts are flourishing, and are affecting our art and all to the good. There is a great future for these people, and we are only laying up trouble for ourselves by refusing to recognise facts. They are the greatest land people in the world, we are the greatest sea people in the world. Our natural affinities ought to lie together and we should try to work together with them for the benefit of the two peoples and of the world.

Mr. MOREL: I wish to associate myself generally with what has fallen from the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. It is true that this is not a very propitious moment at which to raise this question in view of the events which have recently taken place or are threatened; but it is not always easy to choose one's time, and as far as that last point is con-
cerned, I have too much respect for the House to imagine that any passing event would deter it from examining a question on its merits. I associate myself with the indignation expressed with regard to these contemplated executions. I should share the horror of everyone if they took place. In my belief they will not, but even on that point let us have a little perspective. Ever since 1905, when relations with Russia began to improve, up to the War, there were thousands of people going to Siberia every year, the prisons were crammed with the hest intellects in Russia, and executions were taking place at the rate of 100 a week. We should keep a- sense of perspective. Russia remains to-day, notwithstanding all she has suffered in the War, by revolution, external intrigue and assault, pestilence and famine, a country with 130,000,000 people, which is rapidly recovering, and which still represents one of the greatest human and economic forces in Europe, and is a force without which we cannot settle permanently any of these Near or Middle Eastern problems.
I wish to ask the Government one or two specific questions in connection with our attitude, and then to amplify in one or two respects the case for recognition which has been put forward so ably by he hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy). The Prime Minister has on two occasions in this Parliament defined the terms upon which we could recognise Russia. These are recognition of debts, restitution of property or effective compensation, and cessation of political propaganda. This answer allows of very widely differing interpretations. Take the matter of the debt. The chief item under debts is war debt. Does this mean that we are confining our demand to the payment. by Russia of war debts? The Russian war debt is £650,000,000. The first question I want to ask is, Do we really expect to get this sum out of impoverished Russia when we are not getting a penny piece out of wealthy France, who owes us a large sum? Does the Government adhere to the Balfour Note in respect to the Russian debt? If the Government adhere to the Balfour Note, which laid down that we only wanted to obtain from our debtors an amount sufficient to enable us to pay our creditors, then this debt
of £650,000,000 is automatically halved. The debt our Allies owe to us is £1,900,000,000, and we are to repay America £850,000,000. Are we pressing therefore for £650,000,000 from Russia or for.£325,000,000? If we are pressing Russia. for this debt, on what grounds of equity and justice do we refuse to recognise Russia's claims upon us for the damage done in Russia by the expeditions financed and equipped from London? Surely it is just and equitable, if we demand payment of our debt, that we should consider the claims against us by Russia for the damage we wrought in that country.
There is no question about the facts. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Burghs (Mr. Lloyd George) in this house, gloried in the fact that we had expended more in trying to overthrow revolutionary Russia than all the other allies put together. He said it was an obligation of honour. On these benches we do not regard and we have never regarded the equipping of bands of cut-throats led by such ruffians as Koltchak, Denikin, and Wrangel and the rest of them to harry the Russian peasants, to devastate great areas of Russia and to increase the martyrdom of a people who lost more men in the War than all the other belligerent States put together—we have never regarded that as a matter of honour. Anyone who has read the details of the discussions which took place at Genoa and The Hague must come to the conclusion that the question of debts is not the serious item which is in dispute, but that the matter with which our Government is most concerned is the private claims against Russia by British subjects. These private claims, according to a statement which was made from those benches, amount to £347,000,000. Around these claims there is a veil of mystery. No list of these claims has ever been published. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade made the astonishing reply in answer to a question I put to him die other day that the Government did not undertake to estimate whether the claims had been correctly calculated or not. We say we have a claim of £347,000,000 against Russia, and our Government reply that they cannot give a list of these claims or state whether they are correct or not?

Mr. WISE: Does that include securities?

Mr. MOREL: The figure of £347,000,000 apparently includes securities, as far as I know. I do not say that some of these claims are not fair, but I venture to suggest of others that nothing would induce the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade or the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to disclose the nature of them to this. House. What is the position the 4msian Government take up in regard to these claims? They do not refuse to consider them. Indeed, they admit them in principle. We have admitted also that Russia had a perfect right to nationalise her property. No one can bring forward any argument against it. It was admitted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Burghs, and it was admitted in the correspondence between this Government and the French Government prior to The Hague Conference. All the Russian Government declines to do is to agree to pay all claims without even having seen a list of them, and they decline to admit that these claims should be adjucated upon in Russia by a foreign body over which they would have no control.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill): Would the hon. Member tell I; to what claims he is referring? Is he referring to restitution of property or claims made in compensation for injuries done to personal property?

Mr. MOREL: I was referring to the two sets of claims which, as I understand it, are embodied in the figure of £347,000,000. I say in regard to these two sets of claims, as I understand it, that the Russian Government have never refused in principle to consider them, but have asked several times to have a complete list of them. They have not been able to obtain it. The Russian Government has declined meantime to accept a foreign body acting in Russia to determine the amount of the claims. The only rational solution of the problem of getting these claims settled—and there is no one on this side of the House who demurs to any righteous claim being paid —is to recognise in theory and practice Russia's sovereignty and settle these claims through the ordinary channels of diplomatic intercourse. As to propaganda, I
submit to the House that this question is not put forward seriously as a good reason for not granting recognition of Russia. There has been no evidence what-ever of propaganda being carried on by the Russian Government during the last few years in this country or in any Asiatic country under our rule. Any amount of forgeries have been produced, but there is no evidence of propaganda. Even if there is propaganda the way to get rid of it is to establish friendly relations with Russia.
4.0 P.M.
I want now to say a word, not only on my own behalf but for the party with which I am associated. We think that the time has come when this feud which is being kept up, and which has really now become senseless, between Russia and ourselves should be put an end to, that this ostracism of Russia should be put an end to, that we should recognise the right of the Russian Government to live by giving it de jure recognition, and that we should extend the hand of friendship and reconciliation to the Russian people. It is a matter not merely of international importance but of importance also to our trade interests. Both British and American experts are agreed—and much interesting information has been published on that subject by them—that at the present moment there is an enormous field for British trade and enterprise in Russia if we can only get on friendly relations with the Russian Government—millions of ploughs, millions of steel harrows, axes., spades, rakes, and every kind of agricultural implements are wanted. The Liverpool Corn Exchange recently sent representations to the Government urging it to consider the question of Russia from the point of view of our grain supplier, and the peculiar circumstances of Russia are such to-day that if we played our cards properly we could have a very large field for our trade.
The Prime Minister has stated that he does not know what is going to happen if we do not revive our foreign trade. Well, here is a field for the development of that trade. The hon. Gentleman opposite, with whom I had a correspondence some time ago, argued that the non-recognition of Russia is really not a trade deterrent, but I venture to say, with all due respect, that that is a complete fallacy, and I am certain that if he consults any business men who have
had any dealings with Russia, they will confirm what I say, namely, that the absence of normal diplomatic relations is a great stumbling block to the granting of trade facilities, and that our merchants, bankers, ship owners, and so on, are naturally shy at doing business, although they are doing business, to a certain extent, with a country where we have no Embassy and no Consulates to look after their interests.
It is true that trade is developing with Russia to some extent, but this question of trade and trade facilities ought to be looked upon from two points of view. There is the ordinary business done by commercial bills, with short term credits, but there is the very much bigger thing of great capital works, which are so urgently required in Russia, the reorganisation of the railways, and the whole of the transport, power stations, and so on, matters involving hundreds of millions of pounds, of which we could have a very large share if only there were normal diplomatic relations established between us. You will not get men in this country, or in any other country, to go into big capital works of that kind unless they have their own Government represented in the country. Moreover, de jure recognition is a guarantee to them that the Government of the country with which they are dealing recognises the commercial debts of that Government. I want to conclude that aspect of the matter by saying that I am advised, and, I believe, correctly advised, that at present there is room for an immediate expenditure of at least £100,000,000 on railway reconstruction in Russia alone, and that if there were de jure recognition, we could have a large share of that under the Trade Facilities Act.
The last point I want to bring before the House, which has already been dealt with by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull, is the connection of Russia and ourselves in the general international situation. We had a Debate on the Ruhr yesterday, and we have had several Debates on the Ruhr, and every Debate we have had has been an illustration of the really extraordinary lack of vision which has been displayed by our foreign policy since the conclusion of the War. The British framers—I say British advisedly—of the political
settlement which was arrived at in 1918 seem to have foreseen nothing. They did not foresee the inevitable effect of a settlement of that kind, plus the arrangements made after it, the imposition of a fantastic indemnity upon Germany, the blessing given to France to cross to the right bank of the Rhine and to occupy three important towns of the Ruhr—because this invasion of the Ruhr is talked about as though it were something new, but three important towns in the Ruhr have been occupied for 18 months past. The failure to forsee that all this would keep Europe in a turmoil, would allow an opening for an attempted French military and economic hegemony in Europe and was bound therefore to bring us into acute conflict with France, that lack of vision has brought us to the position to-day of being in greater potential insecurity than at almost any period in our history, and has condemned our diplomacy in Europe to practical impotence in the face of an increasingly serious position.
That lack of vision has also been displayed in connection with Russia, and what I ask the House and the Government to consider to-day is whether this lack of vision, which has brought us to this perilous position in the West, is going to be pursued in order to bring us into a similar perilous position in the East, or whether we are going to be made wise by experience and alter oar policy while there is yet time. The attitude of our Government towards the policy which is being pursued in Western and Central Europe by those who are now running France, and which to-day is clearly seen to be, the dismemberment of Germany, camouflaged in some form or another, that attitude is at least intelligible. I do not say that it is intelligent; I think it is the reverse. It is not going to maintain friendly relations between us and France, but the reverse: it is not going to maintain peace in Europe, but the reverse. It. is a fatal policy for us, for France, for Germany, for Europe, but, in view of the real reasons for it—not the reasons given to this House, but. the real reasons—that attitude is, as I say, intelligible; but our attitude towards Russia is not even intelligible. There are a dozen reasons which could be advanced, reasons of strategy, of policy, of trade, of unemployment here, and so on, for the recognition of Russia and the
establishment of friendly relations with Russia. I have never seen an argument produced in this House or outside giving any solid advantages to this country in favour of maintaining our present attitude towards Russia. The attempted settlement of the question of Eastern Galicia and Vilna by leaving Russia out is only explainable by a wish on the part of the Government, heaven knows why, to maintain its enmity with Russia.
Why is this policy persisted in, because to say that it is not deliberate is to burl: the facts? Look at the whole of those negotiations at Lausanne. I have no doubt M. Tchitcherin, the Russian Foreign Minister, is a thorny person to deal with. He is a man who represents a country which is sore, irritated, fearful, suffering under just and legitimate grievances, many of them, and no doubt he is a peculiar and difficult person to deal with, but I ask anybody who has read that Lausanne Blue Book, Could anything be more—I do not want to use a word that is offensive, but could anything be more—disdainful than the attitude of the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs towards the Russians throughout the whole of those negotiations? They were kept weeks at a time outside the Conference, although negotiations were going on of vital importance to themselves, and the text of the Convention was thrown to them, much as you throw a bone to a dog—take it or leave it. All this seems to me incredibly foolish and incredibly unwise, in view of the present state of Europe, and the dangers which are accumulating every day. I do ask the Government, and I do ask this House, to face the two alternatives squarely—he alternative of concluding friendly relations with Russia on the basis of de jure recognition, and the alternative of going on as we are at present. What; will recognition cost us? What will we lose by recognition? What will we sacrifice by recognition? On the other side, what has this four and a half years of confused, inexplicable and unintelligible quarreling with Russia cost us? What is it costing us now What are the dangers involved? I feel sure that if these alternatives are faced squarely, the decision can only be in the way I am urging on the Government and this House, of reconciling two great peoples who have need of one another, and a
reconciliation between whom is necessary for the peace and progress of mankind.

Mr. TREVELYAN: Before the hon. Gentleman replies to what my hon. Friends have brought forward, I want to say one or two words in emphasis of part of their demand for recognition of Russia. I do not want to say anything further on the disastrous limitation of our trade with Russia which results from the persistent action of the Government. My constituency has suffered almost more than any other by the fact that Russia was not allowed to get locomotives owing to the refusal of our Government to recognise the Russian Government. I will not pursue that, but what I want the House to realise more and more is the growing ill-will between the Governments arid the problems arising in different parts of the world as the result of misunderstanding between the Governments, because it is no more than a personal misunderstanding, after all. It is all very well to talk about Labour not being able to govern, but I say that if a Labour, or any other Government represented at Lausanne, had started with the idea that the primary object of the discussions at Lausanne ought to have been either to become friends with the Turks or become friends with the Russians, there would have been some result from the discussions at Lausanne. I do not say that the offer which the Russians made to us of demilitarising the Black Sea necessarily was one which we could accept do not say its form was one which we could accept, but I do say that, in principle, it was one which our country, our people, ought to have looked at favourably. This country and this House ought to have had a chance of considering it. We have a Government which professes to wish for disarmament. What the Russians said to us was, "We will offer you partial—we will offer you local disarmament." Our Government would not, consider it. Why not? They might just as well have looked favourably at this offer from Russia, if for no other reason than in order to come to terms with Russia, so as to enable them to go to the Turks and say," We have made friends with Russia; now you must listen to the proposals which we put before you." It is because the Government did not come to terms with Russia in the East that we
now have this black cloud of enmity settling down between our two countries.
In the last few days I have been putting some questions to the hon. Gentleman about another question which has arisen since then. The Ambassadors' Conference have now made a decision with regard to Memel. Here is a town the trade of which is of enormous importance to Russia. Part of the timber trade, of which my hon. Friend was speaking, passes along the Niemen. The question of Memel and the Government and trade of Memel, and all that Baltic trade, must always be of more importance to Russia than to France and Great Britain. But the Ambassadors of France and Great Britain decide how Memel is to be governed. The Russian Government sends a despatch asking that it may he permitted to have some say in this question of how Memel is to be governed in future, and how the trade of Memel is to be regulated. The British Government do not even answer the Russian Government. They do not give reasons why the Russian Government cannot be considered in this matter. When we ask a question here, it is true we are told that. Russia had no locus standi at. Versailles, and therefore it cannot be considered in deciding what the fate of Memel shall be. That is exactly the point—that Russia is made a pariah Government by Versailles. Because the British upper class do not like the present form of rule in Russia, Russia is made a pariah State. It is not allowed to have anything to say as to the settlement of Europe at Versailles, and four years afterwards the question comes up, and they are told, that because this question was discussed in the first instance at Versailles, although it is a Russian question of far more importance to them than to Great Britain and France, the Russian Government is still excluded, in spite of its former protests, from having anything to say in the settlement of Memel.
In every part of the world Russia necessarily comes into contact with our interests, commercial, political, territorial, and yet wherever we come into contact, you have this attitude on the part of our Government that they are a pariah State, and we cannot touch them. We will not have anything to do with them, simply because of the prejudice
which our rulers have against the form of government which happens to be established there. There are differences even on these benches as to exactly the badness or the goodness of that form of government. There are differences, indeed, on the other side as to whether Mussolini is a hero or a criminal. At the same time, you recognise Mussolini, and if you take a thing, such as that which we have been discussing in the last day or two in this House, you have this House unanimous in its detestation of the possibility of the execution of these clerics in Russia. Supposing we recognised the Russian Government? Would not that recognition give us an infinitely greater influence in saving the lives of these men? We know that if Mussolini and his Fascists were trying to do something of the same kind in Italy the protest made by our Government would not be very effective in Rome if we had denied the recognition of Mussolini because of many of the things he had done. The truth is, there is no reason except political prejudice on the part of those who support the Government for not recognising the Russian Government. It is inconvenient, destructive to our trade; and it is becoming dangerous to our general relations all over the world.

Mr. C. ROBERTS: On the point raised by certain hon. Members I only desire to say one sentence, and that is that it seems to me sound, cold, constitutional doctrine that you can recognise a stable and established Government without implying the faintest approval of its domestic policy. There is much in the Russian domestic policy which is, to my mind, simply detestable, but I believe that we have found from long experience that it is a wise thing to ignore, or to express no approval whatever, of domestic policy if we wish to regularise our relations with a great Power. I, however, do not want to pursue that further because I wish an assurance from the Foreign Office on a totally different point, and I am going to use this opportunity of trying to obtain it.
I want to draw the attention of the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs to what I think I can correctly describe as a recrudescence of slavery in Africa. The Under-Secretary has, I think, in answer to certain questions rather put the matter on one side. In answer to a question
yesterday he denied there had been any recrudescence of slavery. At all events his attitude on questions has been: "If so, I know nothing whatever about it." As against that I should like to draw his attention to the fact that the League of Nations accepts our view. A resolution of the League of Nations at, I think, its last assembly, was as follows:

The Assembly decides that the question of the recrudescence of slavery shall be included in the Agenda of the Fourth Assembly in the year 1923 and requests the Council to present the Fourth Assembly with a report on the information which it shall receive on the matter.

Again, the First Lord of the Admiralty in his explanatory statement on the Naval Estimates says:
 There has been some recrudescence of slave running in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. and His Majesty's ships have been actively engaged in endeavouring to suppress it.

I asked a question as to whether it could be traced to any particular country, and I was not at all surprised to find that these particular slaves which had been rescued by the Admiralty had been kidnapped in Abyssinia. I dare say there are a great number of people who think that this whole question of slavery was long ago finished with, that this is nothing but an echo of past struggles, for, as it has been said, there are few supporters of fallen tyrannies and lost, causes. I could quote further from the authority of Sir F. Lugard who, in his recent book, says that there is still a great deal to be done before the traffic is really exterminated. Discussion by the League of Nations is of great importance, and, I think, deserves the support of the Government. The League of Nations has had the control put into its hands of the Anti-Slavery Bureau which was established at Brussels under the General Act of Brussels in the year 1892, for the suppression of slavery in Africa.

The real thing that I ask the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary is that the Government shall facilitate this inquiry by the League of Nations. The special point where it arises is in Abyssinia. You have eyewitnesses who have actually seen slave-gangs 10,000 strong marching in quite the old-fashioned way up to the slave market. You have got other eyewitnesses who will quote you the price of the slaves. Between three years and 10 years the price is 17s.
to 43s., and from 10 years to 50 years the price rises from 43s. to 107s. You have British officers coming back and telling us that they have seen young girls up for sale being sold by half-caste auctioneers. To prove that I think we must ask far the assistance of the Government. The matter does not rest merely on evidence of individuals. There is a French official report, according to an article by a French Deputy, in a French paper which I have seen which states that a French official inquiry has revealed the fact that every month sailing vessels leave Tajura which acts as the port for Abyssinia, and that the Sultan receives one dollar for every slave shipped from this place, a somewhat crude form of export duty.

In spite of the fact that the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs said that he knew nothing about it, I venture to say that he will not deny that the Foreign Office. is fully acquainted and has been fully informed about this state of things. The Noble Lord the Member for Nottingham in March, 1922, asked the then Under-Secretary whether His Majesty's Government had received in the last 10 years reports which confirmed the existence of a widespread and growing slave trade in Abyssinia. The reply to the first part of the question was in the affirmative and, therefore, that the Foreign Office had reports during the last 10 years which did confirm the existence of widespread and growing slave trade in Abyssinia of which we get confirmation by the French official report. It is also confirmed by eyewitnesses who have travelled in Abyssinia. The Noble Lord also asked whether it was the case that slaves were actually held in the British Legation at Addis Abbaba, and the answer was that there were such slaves who were owned by Abyssinian servants in the British Legation. I am glad to think that the predecessor of the hon. Gentleman secured the abolition of that, and the French Government, I believe, followed suit in a similar way. It does, however, show the existence both of domestic slavery there and of this gross form of slave raiding and slave trading, and the supply of slaves to the Arabian ports which gets interfered with by His Majesty's Navy.

I think that in the circumstances we are entitled. to ask for the publication of these reports, and I should like to ask
specifically for one. There was a Mission, known as the Maji Mission, in 1919. It included British officers and Abyssinian high officials. Can we have that published? I dare say the Foreign Office may fear that international complications might arise from the publication of these reports; I do not know; but it is not necessary for me to say that anything for which I am asking is entirely without any suppressed design upon the independence of Abyssinia, or anything of that kind. I have no such ulterior motive, but I think that in this matter we are entitled to ask the Government to pursue the historic rôle of British Governments in the past. If it is impossible, for high reasons of. State, to publish these reports, I would ask the Under-Secretary if he would put the whole of them at the disposal of the representative of the United Kingdom upon the Council of the League of Nations. I cannot quite understand why it is really necessary to ask for this, but it appears to be necessary, and, therefore, I press my request.

I do not wish to labour the point, but I think the task which this country has carried through, for a century past, in suppressing these great abuses, is one of the great services to mankind of which this country can be proud. We have surrendered territory to foreign nations, we have given them grants of money, in order to induce them to co-operate with us in our task. We have often in the past been accused of arrogating to ourselves a certain moral superiority over other nationis, and we have incurred unpopularity from it. The fact that the League of Nations is entrusted with these high duties does not, I think, give us any ground for shuffing off our own responsibilities and abandoning our task, but I do think it gives us a great opportunity of enlisting the full co-operation of all the nations of the world who are members of the League in the task, and I trust, therefore, that the Under-Secretary will be able to give us an assurance that His Majesty's Government will do everything in their power, by giving the full information which they possess, and which I think it is necessary for the League of Nations to have, to see that this task shall be fully carried out by the League of Nations.

Mr. McNEILL: With the- general spirit of the speech to which we have just listened, it is almost unnecessary, I am sure, for me to say I am in entire sympathy. The subject which the hon. Gentleman has brought before the House is one which no British politician, and still less a representative of the British Government standing here, could possibly shrink from discussing. I agree with very much that the hon. Gentleman has said, and it is a subject about which, so far, at all events, as principle is concerned, there is, happily, no sort of shade of difference of opinion, not merely in this House but in this country. Ever since. I suppose one may say, the time of Wilberforce and Pitt, down to the present time, through all the many vicissitudes of our political controversies, in an increasing degree there has been, to whatever party people belonged, whether Whigs or Tories, Radicals or Conservatives, a continuous and growing agreement of pride in the national tradition, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, that under the British flag individual liberty should be the rule, and that any slave has only to find his way to British soil to enjoy, ipso forto, emancipation. I am certain that there is no national tradition of which we are more proud, or of which we have better reason to be proud; and, if I may say so, for that very reason, perhaps, whatever may be thought, looking from other angles of view at the immense extension during the last half century of British dominion in what used to be called the Dark Continent, I think we may at all events congratulate ourselves upon the fact that by that extension an enormous area of the world's surface has been added to what lies outside the danger of either legalised slavery or the toleration of traffic in slaves.
It is also part of that great tradition that this country has not been content with emancipating and insisting upon the freedom of slaves in its own territory, but that it has used its power and its influence with other nations of the world in order to promote the policy of freedom. I was asked at Question Time a day or two ago why certain old Treaties with other nations in regard to slavery and slave trading should have been recently denounced on the initiative of His Majesty's Government. I do not know whether anyone in the House can have
imagined that that denunciation indicated any sort of change of view on the subject. Of course, such was not the case. The reason for the denunciation of these Treaties was that, happily, they have done their work, and no longer apply to the present conditions in regard to the nations with whom they were made—that they have, in fact, become as obsolete as the old enactments with regard to the Algerine pirates and many other things of the sort.
The hon. Gentleman has referred to one particular country, namely, Abyssinia, and I think it is hardly too much to say that, certainly in the whole of Africa, and probably in the whole world, Abyssinia is, perhaps, the only one remaining State where slavery can be said to be an institution which is part of the economic and social arrangements of the people. The hon. Gentleman has said that there is evidence of the existence of slavery and of slave trading—and I draw a distinction, of course, between the two. He said that there was evidence of the existence of both in Abyssinia, and, of course, I do not deny that; I know that there is. But there are two questions which I think arise here. The first is that, although we in this country are opposed to any form of slavery at all, we must, in looking at other nations, draw a distinction, and recognise that there is a slavery and a slavery. There are forms of slavery or servitude, which, however repugnant to our ideals, at all events are not susceptible of the description of being grossly oppressive, and I think that to a very large extent the slavery which undoubtedly exists in Abyssinia belongs to that comparatively mild type.
The hon. Member referred to an incident which occurred recently at our own Legation, and it is quite true that the slavery which was going on there was such that it really was not known to our own representatives in the Legation until someone detected it outside and called their attention to it, and they had to make stringent inquiries before they ascertained that there was in point of fact a, species of serfdom existing among the employés of the Legation. It appears that in that country those who are in a position of what we call domestic service as a rule own slaves. may tell the House rather a curious incident which illustrates the state of society there that arose when we
insisted, once it was brought to our knowlege, that anyone employed in the Legation, whether living in the compound of the Legation or not, should emancipate any slaves that he or she possessed. There was one employé of the Legation who protested that he had no slaves and when he was confronted with evidence which made it quite clear that his statement was not strictly accurate he declared that the slaves belonged to his wives. It was a. species of fraud not unknown in this country, I believe, where people occasionally say their property, which their creditors want to get hold of, is not theirs but their wife's. It was not considered a sufficient reason for exonerating the man and he was told that, as long as the slaves were held in his family, he could not be employed in the British Legation. But he was a gentleman of resource and on the spot, before leaving the room, he issued a decree of divorce against the two ladies and told them they were no longer his wives. The British representative, feeling a little embarrassed at having been the means of bringing about this domestic crisis, said something by way of deprecation of such very hurried divorce proceedings, but the gentleman was not at all put out. He said the ladies could he very easily replaced and there was no need to interfere in the matter, and the result was, I believe, that the ladies, with their slaves, went off, and the gentleman was continued without slaves in the employment of the British Legation.
That is the sort of thing with which we have to deal when we are talking about slavery in Abyssinia. Slavery of that sort is as much part and parcel of the ordinary social arrangements of the country, I was going to say perhaps more so, than trade unionism is in this country, and one can imagine it would be a little difficult for any nation which was trying to bring their influence to bear on us to improve our morals and manners if they began by insisting that the first thing we should do was to rid ourselves altogether of the taint of trade unionism. It is something of the same sort of difficulty with which we are confronted when, from our higher moral standpoint, we try to use our influence to eradicate from their social and economic system something which is so absolutely established as slavery of that sort, especially as, so far
as our observation goes, it does not in most cases involve anything at all of cruelty or oppression. In the case of the slaves of the servants of the Legation, we had to buy them. The only way by which we could emancipate them was to buy them because otherwise, if we had insisted on the servants getting rid of them, they would sell them to someone else and we should have done no good. We cannot, of course, carry out emancipation upon an enormous scale by purchase, neither can we protest in any way to the Abyssinian Government. They are an independent State and the most we can do is by influencing public opinion so far as we can, letting it be known that we highly disapprove of an institution which is part of their life and hoping that in process of time they may come to view the matter in the same way that we do.
Of course, slave trading is a very different thing, and the hon. Gentleman rather startled me when he quoted from a French report, with which I am not familiar, and said ships loaded with slaves crossed the Red Sea monthly from Abyssinia to Arabia. He used the words "a recrudescence of slave trading." I have made such inquiries as I could at the Foreign Office and I have no evidence of anything which could really be called a recrudescence of slave trading. I have made special inquiry and it is quite true that one of His Majesty's vessels caught a slave dhow last July and freed the slaves, who were being transferred from Abyssinia to the Arabian coast. But that is only a single instance. I have not ascertained over how long a period it is a solitary instance, but I have been informed that it is the only one in comparatively recent times. I daresay our Navy in the Red Sea is not so well represented now as it was, but our vessels in those parts always have instructions to act a they have done for generations in freeing slaves, and it surprises me very much that slaves can be crossing the comparatively narrow waters there with anything approaching the frequency which appears to be stated in that French report and have all this time escaped the vigilance of His Majesty's ships. I need not say, after what the hon. Gentleman has said, that our representatives in that part of the world will be instructed to use still greater vigilance, and we shall certainly lose no possibe opportunity of
interfering with slave trading on the sea where we have the right to interfere. Owing to the settlement of Africa and the practical surrounding now of Abyssinia by territories belonging to ourselves or other European Powers, the opportunities for slave trading across the frontier must be enormously restricted. It can only be by a process of secret smuggling or by slave running across the narrow part of the Red Sea that there can be any considerable trade in slaves outside the frontiers of Abyssinia. What slave trading goes on within the frontiers of Abyssinia—between one part of it and another—I cannot say, and when one remembers that Abyssinia is a country at least as large as France and Germany put together there is no doubt that a considerable amount of slave trading may be going on inside that territory without our having any knowledge of it, or if we had any knowledge of it without having any means of interference.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the action of the League of Nations and asked—I sympathise, of course, with his desire—that we should facilitate its action in this respect. But what can the League of Nations do? It may, possibly, collect and publish evidence and reports, but will such action have any great result in either eliminating the system of slavery of which I have been speaking inside Abyssinia or preventing such trading as there may be there going on? Let me remind the hon. Member that if the League of Nations is to do anything, I do not suppose that the League would contemplate interfering by force inside Abyssinia. If it did, it could only do so through its members. Which of the members of the League of Nations is in a position at the moment to bring force to bear upon the Abyssinian Government with a view to destroying such slave trade as is going on? I am quite confident that neither France nor Italy would undertake that. What I feel afraid of, if we were to encourage the idea of the hon. Gentleman, is that if we were to urge the League of Nations, and to instruct our representative on the Council to take the initiative in this matter and push it to the front, so as to arrive at some decision by the League, we should find ourselves practically committed to taking some further action, which would probably be something which would go beyond anything that
public opinion in this country would be prepared to support and which, even if it were taken, I doubt very much whether it would be effective. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot at the present time encourage the hon. Gentleman to think that we shall instruct our representative on the Council of the League of Nations to take the initiative in interference.
The hon. Member asked me for certain figures and reports which he said are at the Foreign Office, but he quite clearly warned me that there might be reasons of high policy why these papers should not be given. I am thankful to him for giving, me that warning, otherwise I might possibly, in my desire to meet him, and with my sympathy in the case he has made out, have committed myself. I can only say that I will have the matter considered. I do not know whether there are any objections to that course being taken, but if there are not, the hon. Gentleman will no doubt see the papers. I am afraid that he will think that this reply is wholly unsatisfactory, but I can only finish as I began, by saying that so far as the spirit is concerned that has moved him to bring the matter before the House, I am wholly and absolutely in accord with him, and if the Government can see any case which it is possible for them to take up, and if they could diminish in the smallest degree any stave trading that may be still going on, or if they could, by influence or otherwise, diminish the amount of slavery in existence, whether in Abyssinia or elsewhere, they would certainly leave no stone unturned in that direction.

Mr. C. ROBERTS: Can the Under-Secretary give an assurance that our representative on the League of Nations Council will have these reports at his disposal for use by the League of Nations?

Mr. McNEILL: I hope my hon. Friend will not press me on that point at the present time, because there may be considerations to be taken into account which are not present to my mind just now. I have already occupied the time of the House longer than I intended, and l must say something about the subject of Russia which has been raised by three hon. Members. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Central Newcastle (Mr. Trevelyan) was rather un-
fair in one phrase that he used, and I refer to it because it really underlies the whole question. He said, with great energy, that the whole policy of the Government and of this country towards Russia was governed merely by prejudice on the part of those connected with this Front Bench against the form of government existing at the present time in Russia. All the energy with which he humped the box added no force to the observations he made. There is not a shadow of foundation for his statement. It has nothing whatever to do with the attitude of this country or this Government. I am not going to pretend, and he did not pretend himself, that the form of government of Russia is one that we approve. It is not less tyrannical or unconstitutional than the Government of the Czar. I think it is a miserable form of government and that it is detestable, just as I thought the government of the Czar was detestable. From that point of view, one is as bad as the other, but to say that because we disapprove and would gladly see that form of government altered has anything to do with the action the Government is now pursuing has no foundation whatever.
The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Morel) was almost as energetic, and his energy was specially displayed in order to convey to the House what a lamentable lack of vision there is in the present Government. I would not presume to question the penetrating clarity of the hon. Member's own vision, but at the same time I must say that when any of us say that somebody else is lacking in vision he means no more than that we do not agree with his opinion. I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to agree with the opinions we hold on this side of the House or with the policy we pursue, but I take the liberty of thinking that those who are conducting the foreign policy of this country may be endowed with vision not less clear than his own. Both the hon. Member for Dundee and the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull, spoke of the danger of our present policy towards Russia in regard to the larger European questions which are now occupying attention. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull spoke of what he conceived to be the danger of some Franco-Russo-German bloc arising owing to the very inconsiderate way with which his Russian friends are being
treated. May I say that the hon. and gallant Gentleman, by the speech he made this afternoon—and it was a very interesting speech—has very amply repaid the hospitality he has been recently enjoying in Moscow. I am sure his friends there will read his words with very great gratification, but to discuss the particular danger of a Franco-Russo-German bloc at the moment would hardly be grateful to the House at 5 o'clock on the last day. I can only say that those who are responsible for the foreign policy of this country are perfectly well aware of the various currents to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman was referring. They know perfectly well to what extent or to what. little extent there is a rapprochement between France and Russia at the present moment and how that is regarded in Berlin. I think that we are prepared to face that particular danger at the present moment, and that our attitude towards the present. Government of Russia will not be seriously influenced by it.
5.0 P.M.
I agree, of course, with what both hon. Gentlemen said in regard to the Russian people. They are one of the greatest peoples in the world, a people with whom the English nation have a most profound sympathy. I believe, though I have not the hon. and gallant Gentleman's acquaintance with them that they are a most delightful race. They have gone through recent privations in which they have our most profound sympathy, but the question is, What is our policy towards them to be? I do not quite understand what was the view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because I took down his words with great satisfaction, and he tells us he does not press the Government to recognise the Russian Government, though a great deal of what he said seemed to me to point to recognition or nothing else. But he said what he did press for was to resume the conversations which have been carried on. The hon. Member for Dundee left us in no doubt as to his policy which is a de jure recognition of the present Soviet Government, and he asked me various questions as to the conditions which have been laid clown for recognition. I notice that he omitted one of the essential conditions, not the least important, in describing the conditions which have been laid down at vari
ous conferences as recognition of debt, cessation of propaganda, and restitution of property or recognition of claims.

Mr. MOREL: Of compensation.

Mr. McNEILL: Those were the three conditions to which the hon. Gentleman referred. In his answer in the House, where summaries generally take the place of detail, possibly my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister may have made an omission, because one of the most essential necessities of any Government is that in a country there should be some definite civilised legal system, especially one to which traders can look for the enforcement of contracts, since trade rests upon contracts, and for a definite civilised administration of justice. These four conditions remain at the present time unfulfilled. I want particularly to emphasise, lest there should be any sort of misunderstanding, that even those conditions are a minimum. I do not think the late Government ever, and I am sure the present Government never definitely pledged itself to give recognition, even if it could be shown that the letter of those four conditions had been fulfilled but they are certainly a minimum condition precedent to recognition. When the hon. Member for Dundee says—I was surprised to hear him say—that Russia had never refused to comply with the conditions about restitution of property or recognising claims, I would refer him to the Resolution which was passed, not only by us, but by the representatives of all the European Powers gathered at The Hague, following the Genoa Conference. Hon. Members will recollect that that Conference at The Hague was one merely of experts, to go into the economic question. This, as regards property, is what the Commission recorded:
 They were met throughout with A categorical refusal not merely to acknowledge any right to restitution or even to define any conditions Which would provide for restitution of possessions in any shape or form. Nor were the Russians prepared to give any practical assurance in the matter of compensation. It was evident that the effective compensation which they could give, other than the restitution of the possession of property in one form or other, was very limited. Not only did they refuse to give any assurance that this effective form of compensation would be granted generally, or indeed in any case, but the Russian Government declined, on the Property Commission, to accept any
liability whatsoever to make compensation in any form until they:first received credits.
It went on to state that the Russian delegation stood out for a credit of £322,000,000, which, of course, was a demand which neither we nor any of the other nations represented there were willing to consider for one moment.
The hon. Member for Dundee, and, I think, the hon. Member for Central Newcastle took up the attitude that valuable trade between this country and Russia was being last which would be established at once if this political recognition were allowed. I think the hon. Member for Central Newcastle said that one had only got to ask any business man to obtain confirmation of that. I have been in communication with a good many business men, and I totally deny that. As the hon Member for Dundee referred to a correspondence with which he honoured me a short time ago, I think I can convict him out of his.own mouth. He wrote to me, on 6th December:
 Credit facilities are essential to international trade.
That, I think, will be agreed on. He goes on to say:
 The Russian Official Trading Agency in London can only meet a small fraction of the demand for credits from Russian State trusts and institutions which are in a position to offer export goods. It would appear that, certain British banks, while now disposed to make advances on goods which have arrived at foreign ports, are still unwilling to make advances on goods in Russia, on the ground of insecurity "—
I pause there to say, as far as the sentence goes that I have read, that I heartily agree with the hon. Member. Of course, British banks are indisposed to finance trade with Russia, on the ground of insecurity. That is a question of fact. But then the hon. Member goes on to give an opinion which, I am bound in fairness to read, although I do not agree with the opinion. He says:
 owing once again to the fact that Russia's Government is not recognised by the Government of His Majesty.
That does not cause the insecurity. What causes the insecurity is that they know quite. well, if you finance goods to be sent out to Russia, they will go to a country which has not recognised its past debts, and, therefore, may perfectly well repudiate its future debts; that it will go to a country where there is no jurisprudence,
no legal system which can enforce contracts. Delivery of these goods may be made, and there is no system of courts under which payment for the goods could be enforced, or, at all events, no system which is recognised in this country as a system which will give security.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The hon. Gentleman has made that statement twice. Of course there are courts functioning. British subjects in two cases have sued in the courts against the Russian Government and have won their cases. There is a judicial system.

Mr. McNEILL: I dare say that there are all sorts of strange parts of the earth where they have what are called law courts. I say that the Russians have no legal system which commands the confidence of the trading community here, and when the hon. and gallant Gentleman tells me that I have only to speak to a business man to get confirmation of his view, I may say that not very long ago I had a conversation with one of the best business men in this House, a gentleman who in the past had large interests in Russia, and, I believe, has still considerable interests there, and he refuted the idea that trade with Russia, which is at present practically at a standstill, was at a standstill because of the question of recognition. He said, "Once you get economic conditions in Russia there will very soon be trade there, without waiting for recognition." It is not recognition that is keeping him back. Although I admit that the hon. Gentleman can quote opinion, in the contrary sense, of men engaged in trade, I do not find that his is at all the general view, and my belief is that the trading community support the Government, and will be very much vexed if the Government alter their present determination that until matters have been pat on a very different footing they will not give the de jure recognition which is demanded.
Let me turn now to a more personal subject. I resent very much the tone of both the hon. Gentlemen with regard to my Noble Friend the Secretary of State. As I have taken personal pains to find out by questioning those who are in a position to know what they are talking about, I say there is not a shadow of foundation for the idea that Lord Curzon treated with any want of courtesy the
representative of Russia at Lausanne. Quite the contrary. I have been informed, with details in support of the statement, that on these occasions there are certain forms of etiquette, well established and well known, to be observed between delegates of different nations, and that Lord Curzon, so far from being content with only observing the etiquette which is prescribed for such occasions, went out of his way unnecessarily to show courtesy towards the representatives of Russia. Apart from the political effects of what may have been done or left undone at Lausanne, I wish to enter my protest against the idea, which is entirely false, that any evil effects were brought about by any want of courtesy on the part of our representative.

Mr. MOREL: My observations on that point were simply and solely founded upon a reasoned and careful perusal of the Blue Book, and the tone in which the Noble Marquess spoke to the representative of Russia. Apart from that, I know nothing and would not dream, of accusing the Noble Lord. It is merely the tone of those speeches. I cannot imagine that tone being used to the representatives of any other Power as it was to the representatives of the Soviet Government.

Mr. McNEILL: I am very glad to have the admission from the hon. Member that he had no better evidence than that to go upon. I have also read the Blue Book, but I certainly came to no such conclusions from the same premises. I can only think that the hon. Member probably read into what he saw on the pages of the Blue Book a good deal of the prejudice which he himself felt about the matter. I do not wish to leave the House under any misapprehension. I hope I have made it clear so far as recognition of the
Russian Government is concerned the conditions which have been laid down as the minimum, as the conditions precedent, remain as they were entirely unfulfilled. I am not going to pursue further the question of propaganda except to say that the hon. Members who referred to that matter, are under the greatest possible delusion if they think that propaganda has been stopped, or that any promises which may have been given by the Russian Government have stopped it. There have been many such promises and many declarations that propaganda would cease but not one of these has borne fruit. We know perfectly well it is going on in many parts of the world and that is only one of several efforts. I want to assure the House that so long as the Russian Government pursues the policy it has up to the present adopted in this respect, it cannot look for any recognition from His Majesty's Government more than the de facto recognition already obtained. I may say in conclusion, that although recent events would not, as the hon. Member said, deflect the judgment of the House of Commons if, upon other grounds, it could come to a different conclusion upon this matter, I certainly do think that those recent events will not incline either the House of Commons or this country to stretch a point in order to take by the hand of fellowship the Russian Government which is at present responsible for the barbarities with which the whole civilised world is at present disgusted and dismayed.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

The House was adjourned at Twenty-one Minutos after Five o'Clock till Monday 9th April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of this Day.